The European Court of Human Rights ruled Wednesday, July 9, that Russia is responsible for the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which killed all 298 people on board.
This is the first time an international court has found Russia guilty in the MH17 case, the Associated Press reported.
In a separate ruling, the court also said Russia violated international law during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is the first time Moscow has been held legally responsible by an international court for human rights abuses during the ongoing war.
The rulings were issued in cases brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands. But AP noted the decisions are largely symbolic, since Russia stopped complying with court judgments in 2022.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia considers the court’s rulings “null and void” and will not comply, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant.
Flight MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, when it was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. All passengers and crew were killed, including 196 Dutch citizens.
Russia and Ukraine immediately blamed each other for the attack.
But a Dutch-led international investigation in 2016 found “irrefutable evidence” that the missile system used to shoot down the plane was transported from Russia to eastern Ukraine. Investigators later linked the missile to a Russian military brigade based in Kursk.
Moscow has denied that any Russian missile crossed the border.
In June 2019, four men were charged with murder: Russians Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. Investigators said they helped bring the Buk missile launcher to the launch site, but were not accused of firing it.
They also said there were “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the transfer of the missile system.
In November 2022, a Dutch court convicted Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko in absentia of murder and intentionally downing an aircraft. All were sentenced to life in prison but refused to participate in the trial. Pulatov was acquitted. Russia dismissed the verdict as politically motivated.
In January 2024, Girkin was sentenced to four years in a Russian prison – not for MH17, but for repeatedly criticizing the Kremlin’s military failures in Ukraine.
The joint investigation into MH17 was suspended in 2023 due to a lack of evidence to prosecute further suspects. A separate case against Russia remains open at the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization.
The Netherlands and Ukraine also jointly filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. But in the Netherlands, many have lost hope that full justice will ever be served.
Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but the court retained jurisdiction for events that happened before Moscow’s departure.