Russia faces U.N. criticism over role in downing of Malaysian jet

Russia faced harsh criticism at the United Nations Security Council for its role in the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet and for its continuing involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Days after an investigation by Australia and the Netherlands found that a Russian missile struck the plane carrying 298 people, many of them Dutch citizens, Stef Blok, the Netherlands’ minister of foreign affairs, said that Russia was continuing to “spread impossible alternative theories” about the crash and should acknowledge its role.

“No state has the right to remain silent,” Blok said. “Quite the contrary, it has a duty to cooperate constructively, to shed light on the truth, not to obscure it with continuous mist. I call on the Russian Federation to take its responsibility.”

Echoing comments made by President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg last week, Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vasily Nebenzya, said his country could only trust investigations in which it is a “fully fledged participant.”

Putin rejected accusations that the Russian military bears responsibility for the crash, despite findings that the plane was brought down by a Buk missile belonging to an anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Russian army based in the western city of Kursk. Russia backs separatists in eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. an Easter parade, another that killed six innocent bystanders and a group of people searching for disappeared loved ones. In January, Gonzalez wrote about the killing of a Tamaulipas journalist who was stabbed to death while waiting with his family at a stoplight.

This week, Gonzalez became another victim of what he once described as “the crisis of insecurity” in Tamaulipas. His corpse was found Tuesday on a dirt road in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. He had been bludgeoned to death, according to the state prosecutor’s office, which has not discussed possible motives.

Gonzalez is the sixth journalist killed this year in Mexico, one of the deadliest countries in the world to practice journalism. Eleven journalists were slain here last year.

Jan-albert Hootsen, Mexico representative for the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, noted that Gonzalez wrote often about security and politics – two notoriously dangerous topics for Mexican reporters. But he said it was too early to conclude whether he was killed in connection to his work.

The group was not aware of any threats against Gonzalez, Hootsen said.

– Appeal-democrat news services