Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and wreckage of the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border. The shoot-down occurred in the War in Donbass, during the Battle of Shakhtarsk, in an area controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic. The crash was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014 after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March. The governments of the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for "its part in the downing of flight".
The responsibility for investigation fell to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), who have concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade of the Russian Federation, and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area, and the launcher returned to Russia after it was used to shoot down MH17. The JIT say they have established the identities of approximately 100 people, witnesses or suspects, who were linked to the transporting of the Buk, but said that their evidence "must stand before a court".
The DSB and JIT findings confirmed earlier claims by American and German intelligence sources as to the missile type and launch area. In 2014, the US intelligence had also said that Russia had supplied the Buk missile to pro-Russian insurgents, and that the insurgents most plausibly shot down MH17 in error, misidentifying it as a military aircraft. Also in 2014, German intelligence sources reported that they believed insurgents had stolen the missile from the Ukrainian military.
The Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk laid the blame on professional soldiers that he said came from Russia, stating that "it wasn’t drunken militants with Ukrainian passports [who shot down the Malaysian plane], it was done by Russian professionals and coordinated from Russia", adding that "the whole world has learned about the Russian lies and Russian propaganda.” As of May 2018, the Russian government rejects claims that Russia bears any responsibility for the crash, and denies any involvement. For example, the Russian defense ministry claimed that it had never deployed anti-aircraft missile systems in Ukraine. Several theories about the crash have since appeared in Russian media, including that the aircraft was being followed by a Ukrainian military jet. The Russian Government holds Ukraine responsible since the crash had happened in the Ukrainian flight information region.
The Ukrainian Air Force was used extensively in operations against the rebels, and several UAF aircraft had been shot down over the rebel-controlled territory, both before and after the MH17 incident. Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media profile attributed to Igor Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatist militia, claiming responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian An-26 military transporter near Torez. This post was removed later the same day, and the separatists then denied shooting down any aircraft. In late July 2014, communications intercepts were made public in which, it is claimed, separatists are heard discussing an aircraft that they had downed. A video from the crash site, recorded by the rebels and obtained by the News Corp Australia, shows the first rebel soldiers to arrive at the crash site. At first they assumed that the downed aircraft was a Ukrainian military jet, and were dismayed when they started to realise that it was a civilian airliner.
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