Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko were found guilty by the court. A third Russian national, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted of the charges. In 2014, they were fighters of the pro-Russian separatist movement, the Donetsk People’s Republic. None of the men appeared in court and only Pulatov chose to appoint lawyers, who pleaded not guilty on his behalf. The court on Thursday said Russia was in full control of separatist forces in eastern Ukraine at the time the plane was shot down. The verdict caps a 32-month trial that began in March 2020 in a courtroom near Schiphol Airport, where flight MH17 took off on July 17, 2014, bound for Kuala Lumpur. Just hours into the flight, a rocket exploded directly above and to the left of the cockpit, causing the plane to break up in midair, according to an international investigation. All on board were killed. The victims came from 17 countries, including 198 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians, 38 Australians and 10 from the United Kingdom. They were from all walks of life: families with children, young couples and retirees on the holiday of a lifetime, teenagers celebrating the end of exams, professionals going to conferences, a nun, a shipping worker at home. Eighty of the victims were children. Speaking before the verdict, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he and his counterparts would continue to fight for justice for the victims. “All the countries that lost their loved ones in this terrible accident in 2014, we will never let this go,” he told reporters from the G20 summit in Bali. During the trial, relatives of the victims testified in court, in person and via video link, about their overwhelming grief and how their lives changed forever when they discovered their loved one was on MH17. Parents and uncles mourned children who never attended school or graduated from college. others gave vivid family portraits of siblings and parents, their personalities, hobbies and dreams for the future. Many recounted the trauma of visiting the morgue to identify their relative’s body. Others spoke of the painful reality dawning that only a few bone fragments, or no remains at all, would be recovered. Many relatives spoke of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, haunting dreams and physical ailments that they had suffered from the trauma of the violent death of one or more relatives. “We lost the joy of living,” one told the court, while another spoke of “mental torture for the rest of our lives.” Some lost the main breadwinner in their family, adding financial strain to the mental anguish. The grief was compounded, several said, by misinformation from the Russian government and the defendants’ refusal to accept responsibility. Prosecutors, following the findings of an international investigation, concluded that the four men did not “press the button themselves” but were responsible for the deployment of the BUK from Russia and its deployment on the battlefield. The Netherlands and Australia said in 2018 that Russia was responsible for the disaster after investigators concluded that the BUK missile came from a Russian military base. The Kremlin has always denied any involvement, while claiming it was excluded from the investigation. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Girkin, who goes by the rebel name Igor Strelkov, was a commander of separatist-backed forces in 2014. He is believed to have returned to the battlefield in Ukraine, raising little hope that he can be captured and eventually brought to trial. He has previously said he felt “moral responsibility” for the deaths of 298 people, but refused to admit he had a role in the downing of the plane while criticizing the legal process. Dubinsky and Pulatov had senior roles in the Donetsk separatist forces. Dubinsky is a former military officer in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, and was the intelligence chief of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Pulatov, who was acquitted, was a former officer in the Russian spetsnaz, the special unit of Russian military intelligence. He served as one of Dubinskiy’s deputies. Kharchenko was the commander of a combat unit in Donetsk and received his orders from Dubinskiy. The fateful chain of events for MH17 began to unfold on the night of July 16-17, when a BUK was smuggled across the border from Russia into Ukraine and taken to Donetsk, according to prosecutors. As soon as Dubinsky learned of the BUK’s arrival, he arranged with Girkin’s office to move it to a field near the village of Pervomaisky. Pulatov, the only one of the four to appoint lawyers, told the court via video link that he is not guilty. “It is important to me that my country is not blamed for this tragedy.”
