Russia Replied To All 9 Requests From MH17 Case Int'l Investigators - Prosecutors

The office of the Russian Prosecutor General has responded to all nine requests from the international joint investigation team (JIT) on the 2014 crash of MH17 Boeing over eastern Ukraine, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolay Vinnichenko told RIA Novosti news agency

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2019) The office of the Russian Prosecutor General has responded to all nine requests from the international joint investigation team (JIT) on the 2014 crash of MH17 Boeing over eastern Ukraine, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolay Vinnichenko told RIA Novosti news agency.

"I would like to stress that the Russian Prosecutor [General]'s Office responded to all nine requests it received, by sending an impressive amount of important data to the international investigation," Vinnichenko said.

Vinnichenko stressed that Russia "had still all these years been actively cooperating with the Netherlands at the level of national prosecutor's offices, and for all four years had been providing all available information on the MH17 crash," despite not being a participant in the Dutch-led JIT.

The deputy prosecutor general added that Russian investigators had "done a tremendous amount of unprecedented work, from declassifying data on Russian military equipment and conducting a complex experiment by [defense] Concern Almaz-Antey to handing over Primary radar data and documentation proving the Ukrainian ownership of the missile that hit the Malaysian Boeing."

On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the city of Donetsk. All 298 passengers and crew on board the aircraft died.

Kiev accused local militias of downing the aircraft, while they said that had no weapons capable of downing such a plane.

The interim conclusions presented by the JIT suggested that the plane had been downed by a Russian-made Buk missile originating with a military brigade stationed in the Russian city of Kursk. The JIT could not say what court and when would be given the results of the investigation.

According to Vinnichenko, Russia sent the JIT the data showing that the missile that hit the Boeing was a Ukrainian one, but this information was not taken into account.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the JIT allegations of Russia's links to the crash were groundless and regrettable, adding that the investigation was biased and one-sided. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that Russia was not allowed to participate in the investigation of the crash, and Moscow can only recognize the results of the probe if it participates in it fully.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said that all missiles like the one, whose engine the Dutch investigative commission showed, were discarded after 2011.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly stressed that Russia strongly refutes accusations of having links to the crash of MH17 Boeing.