Relatives of MH17 victims appeal to Trump to demand Russia admit responsibility for downing plane as part of peace settlement
Relatives of the passengers killed in Russia’s 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine’s Donetsk region have appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urging them to demand that Moscow admit responsibility for the disaster as part of any peace settlement, according to European Pravda.
In their letters, the victims’ relatives reportedly state that a stable agreement on Ukraine is impossible without Russia acknowledging its responsibility for the downing of the plane. “Without this, there can be no lasting peace with Russia,” they write.
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing passenger jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over Ukraine’s Donbas. Investigators later determined that the aircraft was downed by a missile fired from a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile system. All 298 people on board were killed.
On November 17, 2022, the Hague District Court sentenced three defendants in the MH17 crash case — Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Sergey Dubinsky, and Leonid Kharchenko — to life imprisonment. According to the investigation’s findings, Strelkov, Dubinsky, and Kharchenko were responsible for transporting the Buk system used to shoot down the plane. None of the three appeared in court, and the verdict was delivered in absentia.
