You're reading: World in Ukraine: Journalistic investigations likely foretell official MH17 investigation conclusions

Ten months after combined Russian-separatist forces shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in occupied territory of east Ukraine, justice is far from being meted out. The official investigation, conducted by the Dutch Safety Board, is not expected to be done until October.

Dutch and international investigators said the last debris and human remains were transported from Ukraine to the Netherlands on April 30.

An interim report published in September lists facts without drawing conclusions or placing blame. The report, however, confirmed that MH17 didn’t crash due to internal or technical reasons, and was clearly brought down “by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.”

Meanwhile, Dutch authorities are facing pressure at home to conclude their investigation quickly. Of all the 298 people aboard the flight, 193 were Dutch citizens.

“It’s a tragedy that the investigation process has become part of a larger political game. Toying with our lost ones is a slap in the face,” said Ivo Thijssen, a Dutch national, who lost his friend Pim de Kuijer on the flight, a human rights activist and former election observer in Ukraine.

“The perpetrators cannot go free… This may never happen again. Ever. Anywhere,” Thijssen told the Kyiv Post.

The bulk of Western journalistic reports into flight MH17 implicate Russian-backed insurgents for shooting down the Kuala Lumpur bound plane on July 17 with a surface-to-air BUK missile system that was transported from Russia, and back after it was fired.

All but two victims have been identified as of May 2.

Russia denied involvement and has blamed the Ukrainian military for the catastrophe.

However, numerous independent investigations based on eyewitness accounts, multimedia analysis, geo-location and forensic expertise, including Germany’s Correct!v and Deutsche Welle, Reuters news agency, Dutch journalist Jeroen Akkermans and more have found otherwise.

U.K.-based journalistic investigation group Bellingcat has perhaps conducted the most comprehensive series of reports on the MH17 tragedy. One of the group’s major contributors, Russian-Brit Iggy Ostanin, relied exclusively on open source information when deriving his conclusions.

Using tools like EXIFY, Instagram, Google Earth and Google Street View he verified the place, date and time of images that locals from eastern Ukraine and western Russia were uploading of the BUK being transported. By comparing landscapes and license number plates of trucks, he was able to pinpoint and track the military vehicle convoy that escorted the BUK into Ukraine.

“The information put out by local people weren’t trying to implicate Russia or its military, it was easy to find because nobody was trying to censor it,” Ostanin said. “So it is actually far more important to just read the available evidence, put pieces together…In the course of …four days I was able to determine the fact that the BUK missile was used to shoot MH17 came from Russia, and also the (related Russian military) unit”

No other investigation has made a stronger case that the BUK came from Russia, according to Ostanin.

He hasn’t been to Russia since his family moved to Great Britain when he was aged nine. He will pay his first visit to Ukraine on June 6 to give a lecture on investigative journalism at Mezhyhirya Fest, a gathering of journalists where three awards will be presented in their field.

So why do authorities need more time to complete their investigation?

First, separatists initially prevented investigators from accessing the crash site in occupied territory. The militants also tampered with the integrity of the site by rummaging through personal effects and by handing over the black box to Russia. Meanwhile, bodies undignifiedly started rotting in the summer sun.

Another reason could be the geopolitical consequences of the pending Dutch findings, which will carry more weight than an independent report.

“I understand the Dutch,” Gustav Gressel, expert from European Council on Foreign Relations, told the Kyiv Post, referring to the long and harsh scrutiny expected of the investigation. “They are not trying to delay it for diplomatic reasons, on the other hand, they have to be very careful as once they come out with the report the accusations will be quite harsh.”

Thijssen said that while craving for justice he was also aware of the political realities.

“Conflict escalation and force will not bring back my friend. It will only bring more pain, tears and casualties. The victims are best honored by a speedy yet thorough investigation. So we need to be patient,” he said.

The official report will have political implications given how anxious the Dutch and all of Europe are to see its findings. The debate on sanctioning Russia will scale up as well as other kinds of pressure, Gressel added.

The same happened immediately after the plane was shot down. Both the European Union and the U.S. imposed a new wave of tougher economic sanctions on Russia, including further limitation of access to Western capital markets for Russian banks estimated, an arms embargo and an enlarged personal sanctions list.

However, should the report point the finger at Russia and its proxies, prosecution in courts might prove difficult.

Apart from not having ratified the Roman treaty of the International Criminal Court, which means Russia cannot be sued there, “it (Russia) does not respect any ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, it just ignores whatever is ruled there,” Gressel said.

Another international tool, the U.N. tribunal, “needs a consensus of which Russia is a part. They would also not extradite their soldiers if accused,” he said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Gordiienko can be reached at [email protected].