RUSSIA shot down the MH17 passenger plane, killing 298 people including 10 Brits, the UN has ruled.
The decision refutes years of denials and accusations from Russia regarding the 2014 atrocity, which it has never acknowledged, and establishes that Putin violated international law.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014.
All 283 passengers and 15 crew members on the Boeing 777 perished when it was shot down at an altitude of 33,000ft, crashing near the village of Hrabove in the Donetsk region.
Among the victims were 196 Dutch citizens, 38 Australians, 10 Britons, as well as Belgians and Malaysians.
Investigations determined that the plane was hit by a Buk missile system – a Russian-made surface-to-air weapon.
Now, in the most conclusive verdict yet, the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation ruled on Monday that Russia shot it down.
The ICAO council concurred with the findings of Australia and the Netherlands that Russia was responsible, stating these conclusions were “well founded in fact and in law”.
It found that Russia broke international law with “the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17″.
Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp said: “The decision is an important step towards establishing the truth and achieving justice and accountability for all victims of Flight MH17, and their families and loved ones.
“This decision also sends a clear message to the international community: states cannot violate international law with impunity.”
He added that the two nations now want the council to order Russia into negotiations and reparations.
The body said it would consider what reparations would be appropriate in the face of continued denials from Russia.
Australian foreign minister Penny Wong similarly demanded Russia “finally face up to its responsibility for this horrific act of violence and make reparations for its egregious conduct”.
In 2022, a Dutch court convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian of murder their alleged role in the crash.
The two are Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and the Ukrainian is called Leonid Kharchenko.
They were sentenced to life in prison, and ordered to pay more than €16m, but Moscow slammed the ruling as “scandalous” and refused to turn over its citizens.
The Boeing 777-200ER took off as usual on July 17, 2014, from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 12.31pm and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10am Malaysian time.
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane two hours and 49 minutes after take-off when it was about 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.
Smouldering debris and personal belongings were found scattered over a large area in territory controlled by pro-Russia rebels.
As families of those on board received the awful news, unarmed AFP officers were deployed into an active conflict zone patrolled by Russia-backed separatists.
The officers’ mission involved recovering the remains of the MH17 victims.
They were met with a horrifying scene: bodies, personal possessions, and children’s toys sprawled beside flaming debris, as far as the eye could see.
The AFP Commander, Brian McDonald, recalled the grim task last year, ten years on.
He said: “The crash site was huge. We knew we were going to have very limited time on the crash site. That became obvious early.
“So everything just became extremely difficult and sensitive and required a lot of diplomatic communications just to allow us to move.
“There was fuselage, and I remember there’s luggage, there’s children’s toys just strewn for probably more than a kilometre.
“I saw belongings everywhere I saw bone fragments and body pieces across the whole crime scene and it just made me realise what the last moments would have been like.”
The Dutch government spent more than £158m in the aftermath of the downing – repatriating the victims’ bodies and prosecuting those responsible.
In 2023, a team of investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Ukraine, Malaysia and Belgium said there were “strong indications” that Russian president Vladimir Putin signed off on the shooting.
