The fourth set of hearings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in the case of the 2014 Malaysian flight MH17 shot down in the Ukrainian sky, which began in The Hague on February 1, did not bring any clarity to the real culprit in the crash that killed 298 people. It further demonstrated to the world the blatant bias and politicization of the process.
The Netherlands’ refusal to investigate Ukraine’s involvement in the crash of flight MH17 in 2014 did not come as a surprise, since the forces that are leading this process have been following the political agenda of Russophobic forces to blame Moscow indiscriminately and without evidence for the incident. Even from the moment when the wreckage of the Boeing flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur had just begun to fall to the ground in Donbass, they had already decided on the alleged guilt of Russia. And the confirmation of this is the total silencing of the indisputable guilt of Kiev in letting the flight MH17 into the conflict area (unless it was a specially designed operation), the careful concealment of the fact of Ukrainian ground missile divisions’ movement at the moment of the crash and the flights of Ukrainian military aircraft. To date, there has been no documentation of US satellite monitoring of Ukrainian territory and from Ukrainian radars, which, nevertheless, was done by Russia and where the non-involvement of the Russian side is confirmed.
For many years the Dutch court and the investigation refused to take into account the evidence presented by the Russian specialists of Almaz-Antey, as well as numerous other pieces of evidence of Ukraine’s guilt in the crash of MH17. In the meantime, the Russian company Almaz-Antey, which produces armaments, conducted three special experiments and established that MH17 could have either been shot down by a missile launched from the territory controlled by the Ukrainian army or from a Ukrainian military plane, which was in the flight zone of MH17 at the time.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has previously noted that instead of acting under the supervision of the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is required by the rules of the Chicago Convention, Ukraine, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands signed an agreement between them, the essence of which has never been fully disclosed, and organized their own group to investigate the crash of MH17.
In addition, as numerous international experts in the field of air transport accidents have emphasized, an analysis of the JIT’s investigation of MH17 confirms that the Dutch-led investigation does not fully comply with UNSC Resolution 2166 on the need for a full, thorough and independent international investigation.
That’s why Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stated openly and clearly back in 2019 that there was “no evidence” that Russia was responsible for the death of MH17 in the flight over eastern Ukraine: “We are deeply unhappy because from the beginning this issue has been politicized to accuse Russia of committing a crime,” he added. “So far there is no proof. Only rumors.”
A number of European politicians, journalists and numerous respected experts have already repeatedly questioned the independence of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) investigation into the crash of MH17, indicating that Ukraine could be behind the attack on the airliner. So, the German publication Heise wrote bluntly that Kiev was responsible for the crash of MH-17, even just for the fact that it did not close the airspace over eastern Ukraine. The publication particularly emphasized that the Dutch Safety Board, which investigated the crash, also criticized the Kiev authorities, but the investigators of the incident continue to leave a loophole for Ukraine, due to which Kiev evades responsibility and no investigation has ever been launched against it.
Another anti-Russian show in the form of the JIT investigation into the crash of MH17 played by certain political forces in the United States and Europe more and more undermines the international community’s confidence in it and confirms the hidden agenda of the US and British intelligence services in the organization of this provocative propaganda campaign against Russia. This was especially clear after the recent revelation of the scale of the American-British provocation with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan American Flight PA 103 en route from London to New York. Then the false story of the British and American governments was invented to blame Libya and justify the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The extent of this operation was revealed by the partial release of British government documents from the National Archives of the United Kingdom.
Similar methods have been used since 2014 in the Netherlands’ pseudo-investigation of the MH17 crash to fabricate responsibility for the destruction of that Malaysian flight over Ukraine and justify global sanctions against Russia, plus operations to overthrow President Vladimir Putin.
Back in June 2015, British columnist Caleb Gilbert pointed to the possible involvement of US intelligence agencies in the crash of MH17 on pressbox.co.uk, posting sensational information with excerpts from telephone conversations that give grounds to accuse the CIA agent — US citizen David L. Stern — in leading the special operation to destroy the Malaysian Boeing flight MH17.
This is why there is a need, including with the active participation of the Malaysian authorities who disagree with the results of JIT’s work, for a new objective investigation into the crash of MH17, rather than believing the fake reports on the issue, politicized and clearly incompetent actions of JIT, made at the behest of the puppeteers in Washington. And a step toward such a new investigation could be, in particular, the convening of a public conference in Kuala Lumpur or Moscow, where those openly interested in an objective examination of the events that took place over the skies of Donbass in 2014 could participate. With an unconditional invitation to participate in such a conference sent to not only international experts who are not tainted by bias, but also to many journalists and witnesses who have become famous for their objective publications on MH17.
Vladimir Platov, an expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
