Probe says Russian unit downed MH17
UTRECHT, Netherlands — Investigators probing the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 said on Thursday for the first time that the missile which brought down the plane over eastern Ukraine came from a Russian military brigade.
The Joint Investigation Team “has come to the conclusion that the BUK-TELAR that shot down MH17 came from 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia”, top Dutch investigator Wilbert Paulissen said.
“The 53rd Brigade forms part of the Russian armed forces,” he said at a news conference in the Netherlands.
The flight was blown out of the sky over conflict-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
All 298 passengers and crew, most of them Dutch, were killed in the disaster. There were 17 others on board from Australia, Britain, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The investigators had previously concluded that the plane was hit by a Russianmade BUK missile system brought in from Russia and fired from territory in Ukraine held by rebels. But they have stopped short of directly saying who pulled the trigger.
Now the team has painstakingly recreated the route taken by the missile convoy from Kursk toward the border into Ukraine using videos and photos.
Paulissen said the team had “ascertained that the BUK-TELAR has a number of unique characteristics. These characteristics as such served as a type of fingerprint for the missile”.
“We are convinced that our findings justify the conclusions that the BUK-TELAR which was used came from the 53rd Brigade which is part of the military of the Russian Federation,” he added.
Chief investigator Fred Westerbeke said on Thursday that the probe was now in its “last phase” but added there was “still work to be done”.
Ultimately, any suspects identified and charged will be prosecuted in Dutch courts — if they can be arrested and brought to trial.
Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok welcomed the newly released findings.
“This is an important piece of the puzzle,” Blok said.
Moscow has denied any involvement in the downing of the Boeing 777 flight.
Previously, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov expressed doubt about the impartiality of the data provided by the investigators of the MH17 crash and the conclusions made on the basis of this data.
He also stated that no Russian missile launchers, BUK or otherwise, have ever crossed the Ukrainian border.