EU leaders heaped fresh international pressure on Russia yesterday over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, demanding that Moscow co-operate with a Dutch probe that led to charges against four men.
The Kremlin was also served with a tough warning over its move to make it easier for Ukrainians living in breakaway regions of their country’s east to obtain a Russian passport.
On Wednesday international investigators charged three Russians and a Ukrainian with murder over the 2014 catastrophe, in which 298 people were killed, with the trial in the Netherlands set to start in March next year.
EU government leaders at a summit in Brussels welcomed the criminal charges over the downing of the plane, which was hit by a missile over part of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian rebels while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
“The European Council reiterates its full support for all efforts to establish truth, justice and accountability for the victims and their next of kin,” the leaders said, according to a draft of formal summit conclusions seen by AFP.
“(The Council) calls on Russia to co-operate fully with the ongoing investigation, and expresses its full confidence in the independence and professionalism of the legal procedures that lie ahead.”
The call comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that Moscow must ensure those charged over the incident face justice.
The Dutch-led inquiry team on Wednesday said that international arrest warrants had been issued for Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, all of whom are suspected of roles in the separatist self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic.
The suspects are likely to be tried in absentia since neither Russia nor Ukraine extradites their nationals, and the Kremlin has denounced the “absolutely unfounded accusations” against the men, all of whom have military and intelligence links.
Prosecutors say the four were to be held responsible for bringing the BUK surface-to-air missile system that shot the plane down from Russia into eastern Ukraine “even though they have not pushed the button themselves”.
Ties between the EU and Russia plunged into the deep freeze over the war in eastern Ukraine – which rumbles on with a death toll of some 13,000 – and the downing of the MH17.
Leaders used the summit to extend by another year tough sanctions imposed over Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
The measures prohibit certain exports and imports from Crimea, and ban EU-based companies from investment and tourism services in the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
The summit will also voice the “utmost concern” over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to fast-track Russian citizenship for Ukrainians living in areas controlled by Kremlin-backed rebels and warn the EU may not recognise their travel documents.
“The European Council will continue to monitor the situation in eastern Ukraine and stands ready to consider further options, including non-recognition of Russian passports issued in contradiction to the Minsk agreements,” the summit conclusions said.
Putin said yesterday however that the international community had failed to provide any evidence that Moscow was behind the downing of flight MH17.
“What we’ve seen as evidence of Russia’s guilt absolutely does not suit us. We believe that there is no proof there,” he told reporters.
The investigators did not implicate any Russian commanders or the Kremlin, but they released what they said was an intercept of a conversation between Putin’s aide Vladislav Surkov and a senior separatist, Alexander Borodai, on July 11, 2014.
In the intercepted phone call Borodai is heard asking for military aid from Russia.
Surkov is heard replying that he had spoken with “the most senior comrades – cannot get any more senior than that – who are in charge of this whole military story” and that they said the aid was on its way.
Yesterday Putin sought to once again shift blame onto the Ukrainian authorities.
“Who allowed flights over a military zone? Was it Russia? No. Where were the fighter jets?” he asked reporters, speaking after his annual four-hour phone-in. “There are lots of questions there. But they are not being answered. They’ve simply chosen once and for all and picked the guilty party. Such an approach to the investigation does not suit us.”
In a bid to counter raging accusations that he was personally guilty, Putin recorded a late-night video address soon after the tragedy, urging the West and Kyiv not to exploit the disaster for political gain.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed said yesterday that Russia is being made a scapegoat for the downing of flight MH17, and questioned the objectivity of the investigations into the 2014 disaster.
“We are very unhappy, because from the very beginning it was a political issue on how to accuse Russia of the wrongdoing,” he told reporters at a government event. “Even before they examine, they already said Russia. And now they said they have proof. It is very difficult for us to accept that.”
Mahathir said he did not think the Russians were involved and that the investigative team’s findings were based on “hearsay”.
“I expect everybody to go for the truth,” he said.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has slammed Mahathir for creating “confusion” by criticising the decision to charge four people over the downing of flight MH17.
“I understand – and of course I also feel like that – that relatives are very disappointed about this, and that it sows confusion,” Rutte told reporters ahead of an EU summit in Brussels when asked about Mahathir’s remarks.
Rutte said the Dutch foreign ministry would contact the Malaysian government about Mahathir’s comments, adding that he wanted “to await the results of this first before making further statements”.
Piet Ploeg, chairman of the foundation that represents Dutch relatives of victims, called the Malaysian leader’s statements “bizarre and too crazy for words”.
“It’s an unbelievable slap in the face for relatives of victims in Malaysia and also in the Netherlands,” Ploeg told NU.nl online news.
“It is completely surprising that the Malaysian premier would doubt the findings of his own judicial apparatus,” said Ploeg. “His own judicial people are completely behind the (international team’s) findings.”
Employees of the Afontovo private regional TV company work during the broadcast of an annual nationwide televised phone-in show attended by President Putin in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
