MH17 investigation: Fatal missile fired from territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists

On September 28, the Joint Investigation team is presenting the first results of their criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

According to the experts, the Buk missile system was delivered to Ukraine from Russia. Later it returned to the territory of the Russian Federation.

“Based on the results of the criminal investigation, it may be concluded that flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, by a 9M38-series missile from a Buk missile launcher and [it] was brought from the territory of the Russian Federation and after launch subsequently returned to the Russian Federation territory,” said Wilbert Paulissen, the director of the National Criminal Investigation Division of National Police of the Netherlands.

The missile was fired from a field 6km south of the village of Snizhne (Donetsk region). “At the time of the launch this territory was under the control of pro-Russian fighters,” Paulissen stressed.

This land near Pervomayske ‘can be pointed out as the launch site without any doubt’, he said referring to witnesses’ reports ( ‘loud explosion and a high whistling sound’ followed by ‘a smoke trail in the sky’).

All 298 passengers and crew on the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight were killed when the Boeing was blown up by a missile over eastern Ukraine.

belsat.eu, photo by Reuters