Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko criticized the position of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had previously accused Russia of insufficient cooperation with the investigation of the case of the Malaysian Airlines passenger plane Boeing 777 crashed in 2014 in the Donbas, carrying out flight MN17.

“This is a tactic of Americans - to give instructions to all. And here is the United States? - quotes a diplomat RIA Novosti - The investigation, by the way, is underway, it is not completed, although the end was announced several times, and our claims are well known, we have already spoken about them. ”

"To prosecute"

On the eve, Pompeo declared that Moscow “should go for more” in the investigation of the tragedy MN17. The head of the American diplomacy said this while on a visit to the Netherlands in an interview with the local broadcasting company RTL. At the same time, Pompeo stressed that he considers Russia to be responsible for what happened.

“I hope Russia will understand that it will be in her best interest to report on what happened in that horrendous incident that caused the death of people,” the US Secretary of State said.

To the journalist’s question whether the Netherlands can count on US support in the MN17 crash situation, the US Secretary of State replied in the affirmative. According to him, he has already discussed with his Dutch counterpart how to "do everything possible to bring Russia to justice for this monstrous tragedy."

The crash of a Malaysia Airlines aircraft in the skies over the Donbas took place on July 17, 2014, at the height of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. The victims were 298 people, most of whom were citizens of the Netherlands.

In May 2018, the Joint Investigation Team (SSG), consisting of representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, laid the blame for the disaster on Russia. According to her conclusions, the plane was shot down by a missile of the Buk air defense system of the Russian troops. Official The Hague and Canberra have acknowledged the results of the investigation. Our country has repeatedly denied the accusations, accusing the SSG of bias and the use of unverified sources, as well as ignoring the documentary data provided by Russia.

As Oleg Bondarenko, Director of the Foundation for Progressive Politics, said in an interview with RT, “the theme of the crash of the Boeing 777 is rising again in the West in connection with the upcoming five-year anniversary of the tragedy.”

In turn, the head of the Institute of the Newest States, political analyst Alexei Martynov, claims that Pompeo’s statement “is launching a new round of the anti-Russian media campaign.”

  • Report on the circumstances of the crash of a Boeing 777 Malaysia Airlines liner (flight MH17)
  • RIA News
  • © Maxim Blinov

“The US Secretary of State continues the unfounded accusations of Russia in the crash of the passenger Boeing 777, but the matter is not in Pompeo as such, it only spins the flywheel of anti-Russian hysteria unleashed in global media,” said Martynov in a conversation with RT. - We are talking about the impact on European public opinion. The dynamics of media pressure is such that not a single sane person has a single minute to calmly think, compare the facts and understand that the accusations against Russia are unfounded. ”

As the expert emphasizes, Mike Pompeo recalled the MH17 against the background of increasing disagreements between the US and the EU. The talk is about the pressure of Americans on the European Union in the framework of the trade war between Washington and Beijing, in particular, appeals to refuse to cooperate with Chinese high-tech companies, and the threat of sanctions for participating in the Nord Stream-2 project, and about differences with Europeans. about defense spending within NATO. Demonization of Russia, however, makes it possible to demonstrate the existence of a common threat against which they allegedly need to rally around Washington, explained Martynov.

“And the already almost forgotten case of Boeing, shot down over the Donbas in 2014, begins to be discussed again. They are shouting about the Russian threat again, the political scientist stresses. “The fears that have settled in the minds of Europeans since the days of the Cold War are exploited. This fear paralyzes them, and in this state they no longer think about anything. All the more so about their sovereign interests. ”

Unanswered Questions

According to experts, the statements about the lack of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Joint Investigation Group do not hold water. In fact, it was our country that repeatedly demonstrated such intentions. However, neither the SSG nor the Netherlands, whose representatives headed the investigation, show the slightest desire to take Russian information into account.

Thus, in September 2018, the Ministry of Defense of Russia declassified a number of documents and announced the results of radio intercept conversations of Ukrainian servicemen, who testified that the Malaysian Boeing was shot down by the calculation of the air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, as Nikolai Vinnichenko, Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia, noted in January 2019, the SSG "showed no interest in these documents." At the same time, he said, for four years, while the investigation was going on, Russia provided the Netherlands with all the information they requested in this case.

Also, neither the SSG nor the Dutch law enforcement officers provided by Russia in 2016, primary radar data that questioned the version of the launch from the territories occupied by Donetsk militia at that time were not taken into account. They also ignored the conclusions of the manufacturer of the Buk air defense missile system - the Almaz-Antey company, voiced in the same 2016. According to these data, the MH17 was hit by an outdated version of an anti-aircraft missile system missile, not in service with the Russian army, but still used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

At the same time, despite repeated appeals of the Russian side, Ukraine has not yet published information from its radar and dispatching services about the situation in the airspace of the country at the time of the tragedy.

As the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova, noted last year, the SSG did not even send the corresponding requests to Ukraine. There are questions in our country and the United States, who have not made public the pictures from their companions, which could shed light on the circumstances of the tragedy.

  • Maria Zakharova
  • RIA News
  • © Grigory Sysoev

Finally, the ban of the Dutch government on providing journalists with access to interdepartmental correspondence on the MH17 case seems extremely suspicious, according to the Russian diplomatic service.

"The persistent reluctance of the Dutch to publicize official correspondence suggests the kingdom’s desire to hide the most important information that can shed a completely different light on this plane crash, as well as the intention to remove the Ukrainian authorities from the attack and by all means put the blame on Russia ", - said on May 8, 2019, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.

Taboo on criticism

Russia is not alone in criticizing the positions of the United States and its allies regarding the investigation of the collapse of the MH17. Recently, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad blamed Western countries for taking a biased position on this issue, initially deciding to "hang the crime on the Russians." According to the politician, Malaysia has restricted access to the investigation materials, despite the formal participation in the GMS. Mohamad believes that Ukraine may well be involved in the destruction of the aircraft, and the investigation of the MN17 case is not neutral.

There are doubts about the official version of the disaster in the West. So, at the end of May, Thierry Bode, a member of the European Parliament, the leader of the Dutch Forum for Democracy party, did not rule out Kiev’s fault in the plane crash.

  • Thierry Bode
  • Reuters
  • © Eva Plevier

Also last month, Dutch professor Case van der Peil presented in Moscow the book MN17 Aircraft Crash, Ukraine and the New Cold War. A look through the prism of disaster. ” As the Dutch scientist stated at the time, Western countries from the very beginning had a biased and anti-Russian position on this issue.

However, the leadership of Western countries and leading media refuse to even discuss the arguments of critics of the official version of the tragedy. It is significant that, for example, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, instead of reasonably answering Thierry Bode’s doubts about Moscow’s fault, began to insult him, calling the policy a “lover of Russia”. And the Mahathir Mohamad of the Netherlands government demanded an explanation of his comments.

In turn, in the Dutch media, people who introduced themselves as representatives of the families of the dead called Bode’s words “outrageous”, and the Malaysian prime minister was accused of betraying the memory of the dead. According to Oleg Bondarenko, the taboo on voicing questions to the Ukrainian side is connected with the fact that “it is unprofitable from a political point of view”.