On July 17, 2014, a Boeing 777 passenger plane was operating Flight MH17 from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. A missile fired from a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile system shot it down over the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast (near the village of Hrabove).
As a result of the tragedy, 298 people on board the aircraft were killed. They included 15 members of the Malaysian flight crew and 283 passengers, 80 of whom were minors.
The official investigation was conducted by an international team of investigators from the countries with the highest number of victims—Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, as the state on whose territory the crash occurred. Russia declared its willingness to cooperate, but in practice did not assist the investigation; moreover, its representatives fabricated evidence and attempted to shift the blame for their crime onto Ukraine. There was even an attempt by the Kremlin to claim that the “Boeing” had been shot down from territories controlled by Ukraine. However, the Hague court refuted this and other versions put forward by the Russians.
The trial began on March 9, 2020, in the Netherlands. On June 10, 2022, the MH17 trial concluded.
On June 23, 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution recognizing that the Malaysian Boeing 777, Flight MH17, was shot down by a Russian missile. Moscow was asked to officially apologize to the relatives of the plane crash victims for spreading disinformation.
On November 17, 2022, a verdict was handed down in the Netherlands against four defendants accused of involvement in the downing of the plane. Oleg Pulatov, a reserve lieutenant colonel in the Russian Airborne Forces, was, according to the investigation, responsible for transporting the “Buk” system to its destination, along with Ukrainian militant Leonid Kharchenko. Igor Girkin, a reserve colonel in the FSB nicknamed Strelkov, submitted a request to obtain the “Buk” air defense system in Russia. And Sergei Dubinsky, a senior officer in the Russian group, was responsible for transporting the system through the Donetsk region.
The District Court of The Hague sentenced Dubinsky, Kharchenko, and Girkin to life in prison. The charges against Pulatov were dropped—he was the only one represented by a lawyer.
When announcing its verdict in the case of the crash of Malaysian Flight MH17 in the Donetsk region, the Hague court stated that the evidence provided by the Russian side had been fabricated.
On July 9, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights put an end to this “long” case: “Flight MH-17 was shot down by a Russian ‘Buk’ air defense system delivered from Russian territory to the Donbas, and it is Russia that bears direct responsibility for this crime.” This ruling means that sooner or later, all those involved in the downing of the civilian flight will face trial.
In today’s unstable and volatile world, it is crucial that fundamental, systemic principles remain in place—such as truth, justice, and the inevitability of punishment for crimes committed.