International investigators on Wednesday charged four people with murder over the 2014 shooting down of flight MH17 above rebel-held eastern Ukraine in which 298 people were killed. “I can only say that rebels did not shoot down the Boeing,” he told Russia’s Interfax news agency. This is very important for surviving relatives,” Piet Ploeg, president of a Dutch victims’ association who lost three family members on MH17, told AFP. Then in May 2018, the JIT said MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile from Russia’s 53rd brigade. The war in eastern Ukraine and the MH17 disaster continue to plague relations between Russia and the West.

Source: Punch June 19, 2019 12:11 UTC