Zelensky says Russia’s accountability for 2014 Malaysia Airlines flight downing is “inevitable”

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Jul 17. () –

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that it was “inevitable” that Russia would be held accountable for its role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014, adding that it was an example of “who came to wage war” in the European country.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of those events, Zelensky wanted to remember the 298 victims of that flight that covered the route between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down in Pervomaisk, an area of ​​Donetsk under Russian control.

“The whole world saw then who came to wage war against Ukraine and that the Russian evil is not only a threat to us. Accountability from Russia for this atrocity is inevitable,” he shared on his social networks.

Zelensky expressed confidence that “all those guilty of this and other Russian war crimes will undoubtedly receive a well-deserved sentence.” “Eternal memory to all victims of Russian aggression!” he said.

In mid-November 2022, a court in The Hague sentenced Russian citizens Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinski, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko – who are in Russia – to life imprisonment ‘in absentia’ for the murder of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014.

The court held that the plane was hit by a missile launched from Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, whose authorities, however, insisted on Wednesday that the investigation that was carried out was not independent, did not take into account the Russian side and had a marked anti-Russian bias.