The European Union continues urging the Russian Federation to acknowledge its responsibility for the downing of Malaysia’s MH17 flight in the sky over Donbas in 2014 and cooperate to establish the perpetrators of the aircraft being shot down, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini has said.
“Today we commemorate the fourth anniversary of the tragic downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, which caused the loss of so many innocent lives. For those who lost their loved ones, this day is a constant source of grief and we convey our deepest sympathy and respect to all of them,” Mogherini’s statement, made public on the Facebook page of the EU Delegation to Ukraine on Tuesday, says.
It says that the EU fully supports United Nations Security Council Resolution 2166, which demands that those responsible for the downing of flight MH17 on 17 July 2014 be held to account and that all States cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability.
The work of the Joint Investigation Team and the steps taken by the countries involved to come to an effective prosecution are essential in this context.
“The Joint Investigation Team on 24 May presented further findings of its independent, professional and impartial investigation, concluding that the BUK installation used to shoot down flight MH17 belonged beyond doubt to the armed forces of the Russian Federation. Against this background, we will continue to call on the Russian Federation to accept its responsibility and to fully cooperate with all efforts to establish accountability,” it reads.
In turn, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported on Facebook that the SMM “recalls the victims of this tragedy with sorrow, which took away 298 lives in 2014.”
The Boeing 777 operated by Malaysia Airlines, en route from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), was shot down in the sky over Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. There were 298 people on board. All of them died.
As reported, in May 2018, representative of the International Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to investigate the crash of MH17 (from the Netherlands criminal police) Wilbert Paulissen said that the group “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.
On May 25, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia announced that they put blame on Russia for the downed Boeing of MH17 flight.
