A fragment of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 will go on display at a new Russian museum

The Russian veterans’ group Combat Brotherhood is opening a new museum in the Krasnodar region dedicated to the Soviet Union’s WWII victory. The facility includes an exhibit that displays a fragment of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was downed over separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

According to the radio station Echo of Moscow, a local representative of Combat Brotherhood says they received the piece of MH17 from people living in Donetsk “as a show of thanks” for the group’s help in the area. The plane fragment, it turns out, will be exhibited as proof that the separatists did not shoot down the aircraft.

On April 2, the local newspaper Pryazovia Council said the piece of MH17 was a gift from residents in Donetsk: “In gratitude for the donations of food, clothing, and medicine, the residents of Rassypnoe [a village near Donetsk] gave the people of Yeysk [a city in the Krasnodar region] a fragment of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which crashed in Shakhtarsk Raion [east of Donetsk] in July last year. According to one version of events,” the newspaper explained, “the passenger airliner was shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force. 295 people died in the tragedy [sic].”

A Combat Brotherhood spokesman said the MH17 fragment was given as evidence that the Donestk separatists are not to blame for downing the aircraft.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board (not 295, as Pryazovia Council claims).

Authorities have yet to announce the official cause of the crash.