By Bart H. Meijer and Charlotte Van Campenhout
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The Netherlands commemorated on Wednesday the 298 victims of flight MH17 that was shot down over Ukraine 10 years ago with a ceremony attended by the bereaved and representatives from Malaysia, Australia, Britain, Belgium and Ukraine.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, including 196 Dutch citizens, were killed, leaving the plane’s wreckage and the remains of the victims scattered across fields of corn and sunflowers.
Based on an international investigation, a Dutch court in 2022 said there was no doubt the plane was shot down by a Russian missile system and that Moscow had “overall control” of the forces of the separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine from May 2014. Russia denies any involvement.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, which took place at the MH17 monument in the village of Vijfhuizen near Amsterdam, loved ones read out loud the names of all the victims.
Mark Rutte, who was prime minister when the disaster happened and a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since, drew applause for his efforts during his time in office to keep the international spotlight on the incident.
The Dutch court convicted two former Russian intelligence agents and a Ukrainian separatist leader in absentia of murder for their role in the transport into eastern Ukraine of the Russian military BUK missile system used to down the plane.
“Justice requires a long, long breath,” said Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who took office earlier this month, adding that “a conviction is not the same as having someone behind bars”.
Commemorating the victims in his nightly video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video message: “There is no doubt that the judicial process and the overall work of international justice will inevitably lead to entirely fair sentences for all responsible for this crime.”
His Foreign Minster Dmytro Kuleba, wrote on X that Russia had twice killed the victims. “First with a missile. Second, with lies that abused their memory and hurt their relatives.”
RUSSIA DENIES RESPONSIBILITY
Moscow denies any responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine. However, the EU’s outgoing foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday called on Russia to finally accept its responsibility.
“The evidence presented makes it abundantly clear that the BUK surface-to-air missile system used to bring down Flight MH17 belonged beyond doubt to the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” Borrell said.
“No Russian disinformation operation can distract from these basic facts, established by a court of law.”
(Reporting by Bart Meijer, Charlotte Van Campenhout, additional reporting Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Gareth Jones and Marguerita Choy)
