Eastern Ukraine two summers ago was a fraught and febrile place. Donetsk, a peaceful and orderly city four months earlier, was now run by Russians and pro-Moscow locals with dubious pasts and a growing armoury of tanks, artillery and missile launchers that rumbled through its streets at all hours.
Many people slept in cellars and other bomb shelters to avoid the nightly shelling, but most who could leave the city were doing so, amid fears of an all-out battle between the separatists and government troops who were drawing closer.
The militants, forced out of their former stronghold of Slovyansk in early July, had retreated en masse to Donetsk under the leadership of Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a Russian nationalist who would later claim credit for starting the conflict in Ukraine after helping Moscow annexe Crimea back in March.
At 4.50pm local time on July 17th, 2014, a new post appeared on Girkin’s social-media page, claiming that the separatists had struck a Ukrainian military transport plane, several of which had been hit during previous weeks. “We have just shot down an An-26 plane. We warned them not to fly in ‘our skies’,” the post read.
But Girkin was mistaken: it was not an An-26.
Twenty-nine minutes earlier an air-traffic controller in Ukraine had contacted counterparts in southwest Russia to ask if they were communicating with a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
“No,” a Russian controller said. “It looks like that object’s breaking up.”
“They’re not responding to our requests either,” the Ukrainian replied. “They’ve disappeared.”
The airliner had been torn apart at its cruising altitude of 10,000m and scattered, with 298 people on board, across about 50sq km of separatist-held territory.
Bodies, luggage, seats and countless fragments of the jet fell into villages, landing in streets, houses, allotments and the sunflower fields that surround them.
Terrorist act
“MH17 is not an incident or a catastrophe. It is a terrorist act,” said the Ukrainian president,
Petro Poroshenko
, shortly after the disaster. His officials squarely blamed the militants and their Russian backers.
Kiev argued that the powerful Buk missile that downed Flight MH17 could have come only from Russia, along with a vast array of other weapons, fighters and advisers who entered Ukraine through its separatist-controlled eastern border.
Ukraine also claimed such an advanced rocket system could not be operated by the “miners and tractor drivers” that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, claimed were fighting against government forces; instead, Kiev said, only trained servicemen, who had probably accompanied the Buk from Russia, could have been at the controls.
Putin saw things differently. Looking uncharacteristically shaken, he told a gathering of top officials hours after the disaster that “this tragedy would not have occurred if there were peace in that country – or, in any case, if hostilities had not resumed in southeast Ukraine.” And certainly, the president pointedly added, “the government over whose territory it occurred is responsible for this terrible tragedy”.
The separatists also blamed Ukraine, and claimed that Girkin’s social-media page had been hacked before the post.
Two years have passed, but time has not brought the perpetrators to justice or given peace to the victims’ relatives. Any hopes that MH17 would shock Russia and the West into co-operating over Ukraine were in vain. The case quickly became just another battleground in a conflict that grinds on.
The Kremlin still denies its obvious military involvement in eastern Ukraine, and the many conspiracy theories proffered by Moscow’s officials and state media have created suspicion among Russians about the international investigations into the case.
Despite Russia’s sniping, however, experts continue to search for answers. And the families of MH17’s passengers are now turning to the courts for redress.
Most of those aboard were Dutch citizens, and the Netherlands is leading investigative efforts, based on analysis of debris retrieved from the crash site, shrapnel found in the wreckage and victims’ bodies, and interviews with witnesses.
Last October a Dutch safety board concluded that the Boeing 777 was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile that exploded close to the left side of the cockpit, having been fired from territory that was then mostly under separatist control.
Shut airspace
The board also found that the 61 airlines that had continued to fly over the conflict zone should have recognised the potential danger and that Ukraine should have shut that airspace entirely. Kiev insisted it had implemented
International Civil Aviation Organisation
advice and closed airspace below 9,750m.
Moscow immediately rejected the Dutch report as “an obvious attempt to draw a biased conclusion and carry out political orders”. The Russians said that if a Buk was fired it must have been an older version still used by Ukraine but not by Russia.
The Dutch are also leading a separate criminal investigation, with participation from Malaysia, Australia, Ukraine and Belgium, which is expected to reveal later this year precisely where the Buk was launched.
On a visit to Moscow this month Dutch prosecutors pressed Russia to hand over additional evidence, believed to be potentially crucial radar data, which it had previously failed to disclose.
“The Russians will now look into whether additional information is available or not,” said the chief investigator. “We told them that time was of the essence.”
The Dutch prosecutors have also received a dossier from Bellingcat, a team of independent investigators who glean information from analysis of photographs and messages posted on social media and openly available map and satellite images.
From photos taken in separatist-held territory on July 17th, Bellingcat believes it has identified the Buk that downed MH17 and tracked it to Russia’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade. The 53rd is based near the city of Kursk but was officially on exercises two years ago near the Ukrainian border.
In its public report Bellingcat did not include the full names of the Russian soldiers whom it suspects of operating the Buk in Ukraine, but it sent an uncensored version to the Dutch-led joint investigative team.
Bellingcat also exposed as a crude fake Russian defence-ministry satellite imagery “proving” that a Ukrainian jet had shot down MH17. The Dutch report subsequently confirmed that no other planes were involved, and Moscow quietly dropped its claim.
Ahead of Sunday’s deadline for victims’ relatives to sue Malaysia Airlines over the disaster, the families of six crew members have begun legal action. Reports suggest that dozens of Dutch families could do the same if agreement for compensation is not reached.
Case against Putin
In May 33 people from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights against Russia and Putin, claiming 10 million Australian dollars, or almost €7 million, for each relative killed on MH17.
Girkin is also being sued for €800 million by the families of 18 passengers, including six from Britain. US lawyers say that another suit is being prepared against “people and entities that support the separatists on Ukrainian soil”.
"I feel this tragedy, and the lengthy quest for answers, has kept everything raw," said Cassandra Gibson, whose mother died on MH17 and who is lead applicant for eight Australian families suing Malaysia Airlines.
"It's upsetting it has had to come to this," she told the Sydney Morning Herald this week. "When you are trying to grieve for your loved one who has been wrongly taken away from you, then have to fight another battle to prove their life's worth, it really tests all your emotions."
