‘Russian missile’ downed MH17
INVESTIGATORS probing the 2014 downing of flight MH17 said yesterday, 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.
He told a press conference that “the 53rd Brigade forms part of the Russian armed forces.” The Malaysian Airlines flight on a Boeing 777 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. In all there were 17 nationalities on board including Australians, Britons, Malaysians and Indonesians.
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 Moscowbacked rebels.
But they had 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.
Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko said there is “every reason to expect that in the near future the Dutch prosecutor’s office will be able to file a prosecution against the individuals involved in shooting down the plane.”
A large convoy of some 50 vehicles including six BUKTELAR missile systems left the Kursk base on June 23, 2014, the investigators said.
The missile system that shot down flight MH17 was then filmed several times on July 17 and 18 in the eastern Ukraine as it was transported on a low flatbed truck-andtrailer.
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.”
Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement in the disaster, putting the blame instead on Kiev.