U.N. aviation authority rules Russia responsible for 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17

The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has formally found Russia responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, the Dutch Foreign Ministry announced.

In the coming weeks, the council will consider how Russia should be held accountable and what form compensation might take.

The complaint against Russia was filed with the ICAO in March 2022 by Australia and the Netherlands, whose citizens made up the majority of those killed in the crash. In June 2024, Russia announced it would no longer participate in the proceedings, saying it did not recognize the ICAO’s jurisdiction in the case.

A joint investigation team made up of representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine concluded that the plane was shot down using a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile system that had been brought into separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine from Russia shortly beforehand. In November 2022, a Dutch court convicted Igor Girkin (also known under the assumed name Igor “Strelkov”), the former “defense minister” of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” along with two others, in absentia. They were sentenced to life in prison for downing the plane and killing those on board. A fourth defendant was acquitted.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, a Boeing 777, was shot down over Donbas in July 2014. All 298 people on board were killed. The disaster remains one of the deadliest aviation tragedies in history.