Debris from the downed MH17 Photo: REUTERS/Antonio Bronic/File Photo
From the BZ editorial team
According to international investigators, the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (70) played an active role in the downing of the passenger plane MH17!
There is “strong evidence” that Putin gave the order to move the Buk missile defense system to eastern Ukraine. This emerges from wiretapped telephone calls, as the investigative team announced on Wednesday in The Hague.
But their evidence is not enough to prosecute the Russian dictator. “We’ve reached our limits,” investigators said.
298 people died when the plane was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014. Among the victims were 192 Dutch and four Germans. Her killers, Russians Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinsky and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, were found guilty in absentia by a Dutch court in November and sentenced to life imprisonment.
They had procured the Buk system from the Russian Army’s 53rd Brigade near Kursk and organized transport across the border. The debris fell near the town of Tores in eastern Ukraine, within a 35-kilometer radius.
The men had refused to appear in court in the proceedings, which have been ongoing since March 2020. Only the fourth defendant, Oleg Pulatov, was represented by a lawyer and was acquitted.