The mystery surrounding the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 may have been resolved. After a two-year criminal probe, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has compliled an interim report which indicates that flight MH17 that crashed in eastern Ukraine in July 2014 was shot down by a Russian Buk missile. It’s based on social media posts, intercepted telephone conversations between rebel leaders and witness statements.
During a press conference Wednesday, the JIT presented its interim findings, which included a video depicting the Buk missile’s journey on a low-loader semi trailer from Russia into rebel-held Donetsk and to the site of the launch.
The findings challenge Russia’s suggestion that Malaysia Airlines flight 17 – en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in July 2014 – was brought down by the Ukrainian military. All 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board, most of them Dutch citizens, were killed. The prosecutors cannot file charges but victims’ relatives have been seeking details of who shot the plane down in the hope it might lead eventually to prosecutions. It was not clear whether an order had been given for fighters to launch the missile, or whether they had acted independently, prosecutors said. The incident led to a sharp rise in East-West tensions. Russia responded by denouncing the international investigation as “biased” and “politically motivated”.