July 17 () –
The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, has assured this Sunday on the occasion of the anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine that “all criminals will be brought to justice” and has asserted that Russia continues “sowing pain” in the country.
“On the eighth anniversary of the downing, our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who were killed by Russia. Today, the country continues to sow pain and hatred on Ukrainian soil, but this will not go unpunished,” he said.
A group of investigators led by the Netherlands concluded that the plane had been brought down by an anti-aircraft missile system brought to eastern Ukraine from neighboring Russia, although Moscow has always denied any responsibility in this event and has instead blamed kyiv.
The downing took place on July 17, 2014 and all the people on board, 283 passengers and fifteen crew members, were killed. The plane was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
The Ukrainian ambassador to the Netherlands, Maksim Kononenko, paid tribute to the victims along with several senior officials and diplomats from the Australian Embassy in The Hague. All of them have expressed their condolences to the relatives of the victims and have laid flowers at the monument at Schiphol airport, from which the plane took off eight years ago.
Kononenko recalled that of the almost 300 dead, 80 were children and the majority were Dutch citizens. “It is extremely important for us to stay close to the families of the victims,” she said.
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