"The Russian Federation coordinated the military operations of the separatists from the 'Republic of Donetsk', funded and supplied weapons to the militants, but also carried out military operations itself. Russia was in full control of the 'Republic,'"
stated a short time ago the Dutch judges, who are currently reading their decision In the case of the interception of the lucky plane in July 2014 over the skies of Ukraine.
283 passengers and 15 crew members were killed in the disaster.
Four people - three Russian citizens and one Ukrainian - are accused of being responsible for bringing the weapons.
The prosecution is asking for life imprisonment for them.
With no defendants on the stand, The Hague District Court ruled that they had intercepted the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, which was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
The plane took off from Amsterdam at 12:31 from the international airport and contact with the aircraft was lost at 16:20 (local time) at the border between Russia and Ukraine.
The wreckage of the plane near the village of Garbova, Ukraine, photo: AP
The investigation was conducted for many years by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), in cooperation with a special investigation team of the Dutch authorities.
The researchers' conclusion was that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile of the Russian "Bok" system while passing over the Donbas region controlled by the pro-Russian separatists.
Investigators determined that the launcher came from the Russian 53rd Air Defense Division, which sits in Kursk Oblast.
The four were not accused of launching the missile itself but of bringing it to the field from which it was fired.
The most senior defendant of all is Igor Girkin (Strelkov), a former colonel in the FSB (Russian Shin Bet), who served as the Minister of Defense of the "Republic of Donetsk" - the area over which the plane passed. These days Girkin (51) serves at the front with the Russian forces.
The other three defendants are Sergei Dubinsky, a retired Russian intelligence officer;
Oleg Poltov, a former colonel in the Russian Marine Corps;
And Unid Kharchenko, a citizen of Ukraine who went over to the side of the separatists and was the commander of an intelligence unit of the "Republic of Donetsk".
Residents look at the wreckage of the plane.
"Many theories were spread", photo: E.P
The court convened at Schiphol Airport.
Hundreds of relatives arrived at the place where they said goodbye to their loved ones eight years ago and did not know that it would be their last meeting.
"The truth is on the table, and that's the most important thing," Anton Kota, who lost his son, daughter-in-law and 6-year-old grandson on the flight, told the AP news agency.
Before the decision was made, Robert van Heinechen, who lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, said that the interception was "an act of barbarism", which he cannot forget, and one is what the sentence will be.
After the interception, Russia, which over the years denied its presence in the Donbass, spread a bunch of theories to distance itself from the responsibility.
First, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee in Strykin claimed that it was a Ukrainian Su-25 that shot down the passenger plane;
Then an alternative version was presented, about another Ukrainian interceptor accompanying the Malaysian plane, but analysts quickly revealed that it was a fake;
The third version was an attempt to intercept Putin's plane which was supposedly in the area at the time;
And the most delusional version of all that was circulated in Russia was that the flight was a secret CIA mission and was initially loaded with bodies so that it would be intercepted and scattered in the field.
"Novaya Gazeta" journalist Pavel Knigin, who for years investigated the flight and the propaganda lies, said that through the flood of versions, the Kremlin sought to confuse public opinion and make the public distance itself from the issue as intractable.
The next step was a consistent attempt to accuse the West of an unfair investigation.
In Moscow they claimed over the years that the investigation was one-sided and politically biased, but in the Netherlands - which received jurisdiction from Ukraine due to the war in the separatist territory - they also examined the documents sent by Russia.
The investigators discovered that Russia provided, at the request of the separatists, at least two "Bok" systems, and even the identity of the Russian intelligence officer who was responsible for this.
This was aided by satellite photographs and the interception of telephone calls.
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