The court ruled that a BUK surface-to-air missile supplied by the Russian military to separatist forces shot down Malaysia Airlines MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board. The court further ruled that Russia is responsible for the war situation that existed then and still continues in eastern Ukraine.
The judges also emphasized in their verdict the Kremlin's role in the crash – the Kremlin armed separatists in eastern Ukraine and incited their rebellion – highlighting Russian responsibility for the tragedy against the backdrop of the current war.
The judges found two Russians – Igor Girkin, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, and Sergei Dubinsky, a former Russian military intelligence officer – guilty of murder and shooting down an aircraft.
A Ukrainian citizen, Leonid Kharchenko, who led a Russia-backed separatist military unit, was convicted on the same charges. A fourth defendant, Oleg Pulatov, also a former officer of the Russian military intelligence service, was acquitted as he was deemed insufficiently involved in the act.
Some victims’ families say that the West’s failure to punish Moscow at the time for the attack and the triggered civil war is partly responsible for the current invasion of Ukraine and the Russian war crimes.
Thursday’s verdict offered an absolute degree of justice for the victims’ relatives, as it is believed the three convicted men reside in Russia or in Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine, where it is unlikely they will be arrested.