Russian unit, GRU officer linked to 2014 shoot-down of airliner over Ukraine

Enlarge / Eliot Higgins (C), founder of online investigation group Bellingcat, addresses a press conference on findings within research on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Scheveningen, The Netherlands, on May 25, 2018. - The Netherlands and Australia on May 25 accused Moscow of being behind the 2014 shooting down of flight MH17 over war-torn eastern Ukraine with the loss of 298 lives, in a move which may trigger legal action. (credit: REMKO DE WAAL / Getty Images)

Officials from the Netherlands and Australia today formally stated that they are convinced Russia was responsible for the deployment of the "Buk" anti-aircraft missile system that shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) in 2014. The announcement came a day after a Dutch-led joint investigation team released a report on their findings, which concluded the missile had belonged to the Russian Army's 53rd anti-aircraft brigade, which was based outside the city of Kursk, north of the Ukrainian border.

Physical evidence collected by investigators, along with radar track and flight recorder data, pointed to the use of a specific warhead type associated with Buk surface-to-air missiles. Paint transferred from fragments of the missile to the aircraft's fuselage was matched with recovered parts of the missile.

Russia has long denied that any of its military equipment ever crossed the border into eastern Ukraine, and the Russians presented several alternative scenarios-including blaming the downing of the airliner on a Ukrainian Air Force pilot. The Russians at first claimed to have radar evidence proving their allegation, but the country then said it was lost-only to claim they had found the evidence again just two days before the Joint Investigative Team's 2016 press conference. The separate target that Russia claimed to have identified on radar was actually part of MH17's fuselage breaking away after the missile detonated.

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