The prime minister called on Russian Federation to cooperate fully with the ongoing criminal investigation into the disaster, which is being led by the Dutch public prosecution department.
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“Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit”, the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, told a news conference. And while it’s not clear if anyone died in midair, no one could have survived the plane’s impact with the ground, the DSB said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the investigation as “biased and purposefully partial”.
“Further investigation needs to be done, and it would seem to me an objective spirit that the Russians would say that this is the right thing to do as well”.
This oxygen mask was found on the body of one of the passengers of Flight MH17 [Photo Courtesy of Dutch Safety Board]One passenger was found with an oxygen mask around their neck, as if the passenger had put it on when the masks were released from overhead.
The spokeswoman said it is indisputable that Ukraine was directly responsible for not closing its airspace to civil aviation flights.
The report said “it can not be ruled out that a few occupants remained conscious” during the 60 to 90 seconds before the debris spilled across the Ukrainian countryside. He said flight operators should be transparent about the flight path they choose.
In line with its Ambassador, Russian Federation has denied any responsibility, putting forward the alternative theory that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the general designer of Almaz-Antei, said that all evidence pointed to the conclusion that the flight was downed by a guided air defense missile, probably a 9M38M1 missile of the BUK-M1 which “has not been produced in Russian Federation since 1999”. The government’s missile manufacturer also investigated the incident.
Joustra said that Ukraine authorities had “sufficient reason” to completely close the airspace in that area, but “nobody gave a thought” to the possible threat to civil aviation.
The Dutch Safety Board concluded on Tuesday, after a 15-month investigation, that a Russian-made surface-to-air missile was used to shoot down the airliner.
Reacting to the investigation, Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, said: “Our priority now is to find the perpetrators and prosecute them”.
The experiments also refute what it said was the Dutch version, that the missile was sacked from Snizhne, a village that was under rebel control.
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“Those who committed this crime must answer for it. We deplore the conduct of Russian Federation using its Security Council veto in July to block the establishment of a special worldwide criminal tribunal”, he said.
