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Eight years of waiting.
Two and a half years of trial.
Two hours of pronouncement.
The court in Schiphol, the Netherlands, delivered its verdict on Thursday afternoon in the case of flight MH17.
A Malaysia Airlines flight from Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Ukraine on July 17, 2014. None of the 298 passengers and crew survived.
The bodies were found in sunflower fields or on the roofs of houses in the Donetsk region, in the Donbass.
For the judges, the role played by Russia in this attack is beyond doubt.
The plane was indeed hit by a Russian missile, fired from eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists who were fighting Ukrainian forces in what was then only the beginning of the all-out war that Moscow has been waging on kyiv ever since. February 24.
“The court is of the opinion that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile fired from an agricultural field near Pervomaisk, killing 283 passengers and 15 crew members,”
declared the president of the court, Hendrik Steenhuis, from the start of the delivery, in front of a packed room where the relatives of the victims from all over the world - and long prevented from following the proceedings due to the pandemic - were present in large numbers.
The presiding judge deliberately recalled that
“from mid-May 2014, Russia had so-called comprehensive control over the Donetsk People's Republic”.
“A scandalous trial”
While Russia and Ukraine have long blamed each other for this tragedy, President Zelensky hailed on Twitter
"an important decision",
adding that
"the punishment for all Russian atrocities - both yesterday and 'today - will be inevitable'.
His Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba, for his part, underlined the
“in-depth joint efforts between Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia”
during the investigation, which was extraordinary .
, due in particular to the numerous nationalities of the victims, among whom were 193 Dutch, 28 Malaysians and 27 Australians.
Important court decision in The Hague.
First sentences for the perpetrators of #MH17 downing.
Holding to account masterminds is crucial too, as the feeling of impunity leads to new crimes.
We must dispel this illusion.
Punishment for all RF's atrocities then & now is inevitable.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 17, 2022
Moscow, which has always denied its involvement in this tragedy, reacted strongly to the judgment.
"The course and outcome of the legal proceedings indicate that (the decision) is based on a political order,"
the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The trial in the Netherlands has every chance of becoming one of the most scandalous in the history of legal proceedings,”
he added.
Four men were prosecuted in this case, not for having launched the missile, but for having worked on its delivery and that of the launcher in this region illegally annexed by Russia.
None of them participated in the trial.
Only the Russian Oleg Poulatov had chosen to be represented by two lawyers.
And it is this 56-year-old man, a former officer in the Russian special forces, ex-deputy official within the separatist military leadership, who was acquitted on Thursday, for lack of evidence.
In a video sent to court in June, he claimed to have
“nothing to do with the disaster”.
On the other hand, the Russians Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky and the Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were
"found guilty"
of murder, and to have some responsibility for the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane.
They are sentenced to life in absentia.
Read alsoThe MH17 crash: Wikipedia facing the information war
In July 2014, when the plane was shot down, Igor Girkin, 51, a former member of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), was defense minister and commander of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
Sergei Dubinsky, 60, a former officer in the Russian military intelligence service (GRU), was Igor Girkin's deputy.
As for the Ukrainian Leonid Khartchenko, he was accused of having personally helped to escort the missile after its entry into Ukraine, then of having done the same with the launcher after the crash.
Linked to separatist forces, he commanded a combat unit in the Donetsk region in July 2014.
The Ukrainian president hailed these “
first convictions”
.
"
But it is necessary that the instigators end up in the dock, because the feeling of impunity leads to new crimes"
, he however underlined, calling for
"to remove this illusion",
according to which international justice would not find and convict those guilty of
"atrocities".
For now, it is unlikely that the three convicted in the MH17 case will serve their sentence.
Russia will not extradite them.
Grain export deal extended for four months
The agreement allowing grain exports from Ukrainian ports, which was due to expire Friday evening at midnight, has been renewed for the four winter months, alleviating concerns about a possible global food crisis.
The four parties involved in this agreement, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations confirmed Thursday the continuation of this agreement "without any change", said Russian diplomacy in a press release.
“
Following the quadripartite talks organized by Turkey, the agreement on the Black Sea cereals corridor has been extended by 120 days from November 19,
” announced Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Turkish president, one of the craftsmen of the device, also argued "
the importance and the benefit
" of this agreement "
for supply and food security in the world, with nearly 500 boats and more than 11 million tonnes of cereals and food products
" delivered since the summer.
On Thursday, several Ukrainian cities, including the capital, kyiv, were targeted by Russian strikes.
These bombings coincide with the first snowfalls in a country plagued by power cuts where temperatures could drop to -10°C.
The repetition of Russian strikes since October on Ukraine's energy infrastructure regularly deprives millions of Ukrainians of power, but also of water.