BRUSSELS – There is no doubt that the BUK launcher that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board, belonged to the Russian armed forces, a European Union spokesperson told the Kyiv Post on Sept. 18.
The spokesperson, speaking on the usual condition of anonymity, said Brussels had “full confidence” in the work done by the international Joint Investigation Team, which is investigating the downing of the aircraft, and “the findings of its independent, professional and impartial investigation.”
The spokesperson was responding to claims made by the Russian Ministry of Defense on Sept. 17 that the missile that shot down MH17 had been in service with the Ukrainian armed forces at the time. The Russian ministry presented a factory log with missile serial numbers that it said showed the missile had been delivered to a Soviet anti-aircraft brigade based in western Ukraine in 1986, and implied that the weapon had remained in service with that unit until 2014.
There has not yet been any independent verification of either of those claims.
“On May 24, 2018, the Joint Investigation Team presented further findings concluding that the BUK installation used to bring down Flight MH17 belonged beyond doubt to the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” the EU spokesperson said.
In an official statement issued on Sept. 17, the Joint Investigation Team said it would carefully study the new materials Russia has presented, as it does with all the information provided, as soon as the Russian Federation makes the relevant documents available to the team, as it requested in May 2018, and as required under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2166.
The Joint Investigation Team during its May 24 presentation showed evidence that the BUK anti-aircraft missile launcher that downed MH17 had been supplied to Russian-led forces in Ukraine’s Donbas by Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk, Russia. It also showed parts of the missile, including their serial numbers.
The launcher, BUK No. 322, was smuggled into Ukraine in the days before MH17 was shot down, and was videoed and photographed on numerous occasions on its way to the site where it launched the missile. It was videoed in the city of Luhansk on the day after the shoot-down, on the back of a flatbed truck, moving in the direction of Russia and minus one of its four missiles.
