The Dutch-led group of international investigators who formed to examine the 2014 MH17 downing have named four suspects. Three are Russian nationals who they suspect reside in Russia, the other is a Ukrainian national who they suspect lives in eastern Ukraine.
The term MH17 refers to the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine in July 2014. All 298 people on board were killed. 196 of those killed were Dutch nationals.
In 2016, it was revealed by an investigation team that the plane was shot by a Russian made Cold War rocket launcher. The investigation team was formed by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
The Russian nationals have been named as Igor Vsevolodovich, Sergey Nikolayevich, Oleg Pulatov. The Ukrainian national has been named as Leonid Kharchenko
All of these were in eastern Ukraine on the night of the attack, said the spokesman for the investigators, who are from The Netherlands, where most of the victims of the incident were from.
The Netherlands have further said that Russia has not cooperated with their investigation procedures, and do not expect them to hand over any of their charged.
Moscow say they do not trust the international investigation.
“Russia was unable to take part in the investigation despite expressing an interest right from the start and trying to join it,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday.
Investigative website Bellingcat on Wednesday said that a number of Russian military and intelligence officers were identified as suspects along with separatists. Exactly who gave the order to shoot however, is still unclear said Bellingcat.
While the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for the shooting, Putin has said that while the incident was a “terrible tragedy” Moscow was not to blame.
The investigation team confirmed that the missile came from a Russian organization.
Russia and was indeed returned there after the attack.
