Dutch authorities charged four suspects on Wednesday for allegedly shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014.
Three Russians, Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were charged in the Netherlands for the deaths of 283 passengers. The trial will begin in March 2020.
The three Russians charged held important roles in Russian intelligence agencies operating in the region.
Girkin was a colonel in Russia’s FSB intelligence service and was the minister of defense in the region, according to the BBC. Dubinsky was his deputy and both maintained regular contact with the Kremlin. Pulatov was a former special forces soldier and deputy head of intelligence in the Ukrainian territory.
The Malaysian flight was flying to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam when it was shot down close to the Russian-Ukraine border in 2014. The plane crashed in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, where fighting was raging between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces.
After a lengthy investigation by the JIT — a joint Dutch investigative team with officials from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, and Ukraine — investigators found a Russian Buk missile was responsible for the crash. The missile was a part of a Russian anti-aircraft system based in Kursk, Russia. Russian officials still claim the anti-aircraft system was never moved to Ukraine.
Investigators have “evidence showing that Russia provided the missile launcher,” prosecutor Fred Westerbeke told the BBC.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia has been given “no chance to take part” in the investigation.
In 2018, Australia and the Netherlands officially announced that they believe Russia is liable for the crash and were taking steps to “formally [hold] Russia accountable.”
