MH17: Moscow denies involvement in shooting down the aircraft

by Theleaders-Online | June 20, 2019 9:32 am

KUALA LUMPUR: The Russian government today dismissed allegations by the Dutch Joint Investigation Team (JIT) that its soldiers were responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 over Ukraine.

In a statement, the Russian embassy in Kuala Lumpur said that its government is being the target of ‘unfounded accusations’, aimed at tarnishing the nation’s image in the international community.

“In its previous press conferences, the JIT did not provide concrete evidence to back up its statements.

“The JIT continues to make unreasonable arguments, some which are based on dubious sources,” reads the statement.

The statement claimed that JIT had ignored the data provided by the Russian authorities in regards to the matter.

“The JIT representatives even accuse Russia of withholding cooperation. We categorically deny such accusations.

“From the very first day of the tragedy, Russia has been interested in finding the truth and was willing to help the investigation.

“Our government actively cooperated with the Netherlands and presented all the information it had on the MH17 crash,” reads the statement.

The Russian embassy added that the government had also declassified information on its military equipment and conducted a meticulous experiment in collaboration with Almaz-Antei, to provide primary radar data and documents to show that the missile that downed MH17 belonged to Ukraine.

It also said that its precision expert analysis proved that the video clips used by JIT to reach its conclusions were fabricated.

The JIT announced yesterday that it is going to prosecute four suspects – Russians Igor Girrkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko[1] – for shooting down MH17.

Earlier today, Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad dismissed JIT’s findings and described it as a political conspiracy against Russia. [2]

He also said that the entire incident has been turned into a political issue from the start and demanded solid proof that Russia was responsible for shooting down the plane.

Source URL: https://theleaders-online.com/mh17-moscow-denies-involvement-in-shooting-down-the-aircraft/

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