New evidence presented in the International Court of Justice in The Hague confirm prior independent findings that Russia shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Donbas in 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
In the latest hearings that began on June 7, the court reviewed multiple fragments of the Buk ground-to-air missile that destroyed the aircraft and killed its passengers. The court also heard two witnesses who saw the missile launch from a location controlled by Russian-backed forces.
While Russia has denied responsibility and put forth numerous alternate explanations for the plane’s destruction, watchdogs believe the latest evidence conclusively proves Russia’s guilt.
“To deny MH17 was shot down by a Buk is totally unhinged,” said Eliot Higgins, the head of international investigation group Bellingcat.
“We’ve known that for years, but the court really demonstrated how much evidence there is and the many witnesses to the attack.”
The latest hearings looked at the case’s most fundamental issues, such as the weapon that brought down the airliner, where it was launched from and the role of the suspects indicted by Dutch prosecutors.
According to the trial’s head justice Hendrik Steenhuis, the case contains as many as 65,000 pages of texted materials, along with “many hours of video footage.”
Some material revealed in recent hearings had previously been concealed from the public to protect witnesses.
In particular, the court reviewed new pictures of four fragments found at the crash site. Three of them were identified by expert witnesses as pieces of a Buk 9М38М1 missile, while the fourth could be part of either a 9М38М1 or a 9М38 missile.
According to the court, these fragments unambiguously indicate that the jet had been downed by a 9М38М1 missile.
Higgins noted this is the same kind of missile that was being carried by a Buk launcher spotted in the area on the day of the crash. Bellingcat dug up open source data to prove that the Buk-M1 missile system that mistakenly shot down flight MH17 belonged to Russia’s 53rd Air Defense Brigade.
Through numerous pictures it found on social media, Bellingcat tracked the missile system from the Russian city of Kursk where it was originally stationed, to the MH17 crash site in occupied Donbas, then back to Russia.
Russia continues to blame Ukraine and deny its role in the plane’s destruction.
The court also reviewed pictures of butterfly-shaped fragments that had riddled the cockpit and a pilot’s body. Their distinctive shape proves that the jet was hit by a ground-to-air missile.
As Higgins noted, this finding debunks a theory that the jet was downed by a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 close support aircraft, which the Kremlin spread after the incident.
All radar data reviewed by the court show no evidence of aircraft besides the MH17 plane in the area.
On the second day of the trial, the court also watched an eyewitness’s video recording from 2014 showing the Buk-M1 system move along a road near the town of Pervomaiske in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast (just south of the city of Snizhne), close to the crash site.
Bellingcat and other investigators geolocated the missile’s most likely launch site to a field just west of Pervomaiske.
According to the court, close to 20 witnesses saw a condensation trail left in the sky by the Buk missile or heard its impact blast.
On June 8, a man who formerly worked with the Russian-backed militants testified in court, saying he was standing post at a crossroads close to the launch site on the day of the attack.
The former militant claimed that he saw a Buk system fire a missile against an aircraft flying overhead, which turned out to be a civilian jet. The missile launcher was allegedly moved away from the scene shortly after the missile destroyed the jet’s cockpit and the aircraft fell into a spin.
“We have seen so many interconfirmed pieces of evidence that in fact there can’t be another explanation behind what happened except for Russia providing the weapon that downed the aircraft and killed 298 people,” Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev said on June 8.
“There are no doubts. We have seen even more pieces of evidence than what was presented in the court.”
