UK & US hold Russia responsible for MH17 crash

Now the UK, which was host to the Skripal incident, is joining the members of the Joint Investigation Team in placing the responsibility for the downing of Malaysia MH17 over the skies of the Ukraine  with the Kremlin, once again.

SKY News reports:

Russia must “answer for its actions” after it was named culpable by investigators for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 four years ago, Boris Johnson has said.

The foreign secretary said findings released yesterday that a Russian army missile blew the plane out of the sky showed that “the Kremlin believes it can act with impunity”.

NATO has called on Russia to “accept responsibility” and “establish accountability” for the attack that killed all 298 people on board – including 10 Britons.

The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014 when it was shot down over a field in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s government has denied any responsibility and accused the Dutch authorities’ inquiry of failing to provide proof of its claims.

Mr Johnson on Friday accused Russia of “undermining the investigation” with a “deluge of disinformation”.

He threw the UK’s support behind a call from Australia and the Netherlands for Russia to accept “state responsibility”.

Mr Johnson said: “Instead of seeking to undermine the investigation through the deluge of disinformation we have seen from Russia about MH17 in the past, the Russian Federation must fulfil its obligations… to provide any requested assistance to the investigation.

“To do otherwise would be a violation of the UN’s resolution, and to deny the families the justice they seek for their loved ones.”

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO general secretary, said: “I call on Russia to accept responsibility and fully cooperate with all efforts to establish accountability.”

He added: “The downing of MH17 was a global tragedy, and those responsible must be held accountable.”

On Thursday, Dutch National Police released the findings of their investigation, claiming proof that the missile was from the Russian military’s 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade, based in the city of Kursk.

They recreated the route taken by the missile convoy from Kursk across the border into Ukraine using videos and images.

The Russian military denied that any Russian missile complex had ever crossed the border between Russia and Ukraine, TASS news agency reported.

“A Dutch minister called me,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

“They have practically no doubt that the missile came from Russia. I asked him about facts proving these claims. He did not give me any facts.”

He also accused the Dutch of using the tragedy to “achieve their own political goals”.

Investigators have announced that the trial of any suspects arrested in the shooting down of flight MH17 will be held in the Netherlands, under an agreement reached with the countries leading the joint probe.

Just like in the Skripal poisoning case, conclusive evidence has not yet come forward linking the Kremlin to the shooting down of the passenger jet, over the skies of a country experiencing a bloody civil war, but British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson is back with his ‘absolutely categorical’ certainty that Russia was behind it, but this time he seems to to have tempered his phraseology using the the words ‘practically no doubt’.

Last time, he made a monkey of himself by claiming that Porton Down scientists told him that they were ‘absolutely categorical’ that Russia made the Novichok used on the Skripals.

Perhaps adding ‘practically’ here is a takeaway from Prime Minister Theresa May, who didn’t suffer the same sort of backlash for her outrageous claims by saying ‘highly likely’.

Of course, Britain wouldn’t take a jab at another country nowadays without having some friends to back them up on it. Boris must have been ‘confident’ that the Americans would join the melody and also denounce Russia while making a few demands.

The State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, came out with a statement demanding that the Russians assume some accountability for its actions.

Reuters reports:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Friday joined calls for Russia to account for its role in the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Flight MH-17 over eastern Ukraine.

“It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH-17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that blamed Russian aggression in Ukraine for more than 10,300 deaths.

After all, the Russians ‘meddled’ in the 2016 Presidential elections that got us Donald Trump, so why wouldn’t they shoot down a passenger jet, killing hundreds of civilians who weren’t doing anything to Russia, and had absolutely nothing to do with Russia? I mean, the only thing Russia stood to gain by downing the jet was to earn some denouncement points from the Western media, which the Kremlin apparently loves to rack up. So why not just go ahead and blow up a plane? After all, the American president threatens to blow up whole countries, and plenty of his predecessors already have, so why not join the club?