Crash of MH-17: Case takes a turn that is unexpected for Ukraine

Parliamentarians urge the government to use all opportunities for a "full investigation of the facts" in relation to Ukraine. Deputies from the Party of Christian Democrats (CDA) and the Socialist Party (SP), with the support of other political forces, particularly insist on the investigation.

After more than five years, the deputies saw that Ukraine was supposed to close airspace over the region where the fighting was taking place.

So far, the Dutch government has not taken any action against Ukraine, but the House of Representatives wants to take the first step.

“Time is running out, memories fade, data will be lost,” says Christian Democrat Chris van Dam.

“There is no clarity on the role of Ukraine in the tragedy, although this country was supposed to close airspace,” said MP Michel van Nispen. According to him, it is necessary to conduct an additional investigation in order to achieve truth and justice in this matter.

The initiative contradicts the official position of the Dutch government, which concluded an agreement with the Australian government that the only party that should be responsible for the disaster in the sky of Donbass is Russia.

It is noteworthy that the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Stef Blok, expressed the opinion that there are no “legal grounds” for the investigation. According to him, the difficulty lies in the fact that this will require "cooperation not only from Ukraine, but also from Russia", which once again testifies to the tendentious approach to the facts of the ruling Dutch Tolerasts.

Steph Block

It seems that the Dutch deputies had several incentives to start their own investigation:

Firstly, the results of a survey conducted this year among the relatives of the victims. 87.5% of them said that ultimately Ukraine should be held accountable.

Secondly, the independent position of the Government of Malaysia, based on its own investigation up to the commando group being thrown into the plane crash zone and collecting evidence. The Malaysian side refuses to accept the allegations of the Dutch and Australians on faith, believing that they are under political pressure from the United States.

Thirdly, the Dutch officialdom alerted the suspiciously easy exchange of the DPR Zemakh soldier, kidnapped by the Ukrainian secret services, and long issued by the Ukrainian side as a “crown witness” of the disaster.

Some Dutch media (NOS publication, for example) consider the Zemach exchange as a missed opportunity to “find out the truth,” since the “crown witness” was in the clutches of the Ukrainian investigating authorities for two whole months, and the Nieuwsuur television channel shot a documentary about Zemakh and MH-17 convincingly telling the layman about the “high-ly-like” Russian fault in the fall of the Malaysian “Boeing”.

The exchange of the “crown witness” to a large extent confused the plans of the supporters of the “obvious” version of the disaster, forcing the Dutch parliamentarians to start their own investigation. Some people even claim that the Zemakh exchange says "an unfriendly act on the part of Ukraine."

“Yesterday I carefully listened to all the debates in the Dutch parliament, a wonderful topic, in fact. Do you know why suddenly the Dutch deputies, almost unanimously, all the factions realized that Ukraine certainly has wine? Because they were offended by Zemakh, the DPR militia, whom Ukraine had stolen, and then returned to the Homeland for the exchange of prisoners. Think about the approach to justice of Western parliamentarians - “Ukraine used to be our ally, said Foreign Minister Steph Blok, so we couldn’t act like that,” and the deputies say to him: “now she’s everything, she’s violating our agreements, she’s broke the only “dock” of the investigation team, ”and then a unanimous decision of parliament is born.

And now the government is obliged to investigate as soon as possible why Ukraine did not close the airspace, what it was obliged to do, ”said political analyst Vladimir Kornilov, who had lived in Holland for several years.

“Parliament ordered the government to submit the results of the investigation as soon as possible, and it will probably fall, including in the lawsuit that will begin on the Boeing,” the expert added.

In the Ukrainian media of a guardian orientation, the situation with the beginning of the Netherlands parliamentary investigation of the disaster case of the Malaysian Boeing is deafened, but fears through the comments that sooner or later the details of the crime will be swept out from under the carpet and still have to answer. Most often, regrets in the style of “What about us? The Boss said to you: Russia is to blame for the crash - dig here against it. ”

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry has already made a statement that the Joint Investigation Team for the investigation of the crash of flight MH-17 in the area of hostilities over the Donbass in 2014 adjusts its tasks to a previously prepared convict.

Moscow has repeatedly reported that the investigation ignores its own investigations by the Russian side - for example, it refused to take into account data on the Ukrainian identity of the rocket - already since 1987, to which the plane was shot down. Kiev, in turn, is a full member of the international investigation team, having the ability to distort and interpret the results of the investigation in its favor.

The results of the vote in the lower house of the Dutch parliament are, without exaggeration, important, since this country plays a leading role in the investigation of the plane crash, it is her prosecutor's office that leads the Joint Investigation Group.

Recall that for more than five years Ukraine has not only failed to help investigate the disaster, but has also actively put sticks in the wheels: it did not provide information from its radars about the crash of the liner, although the moment of the tragedy the flight was controlled by Ukrainian radars and an air defense system, and the flight mode was controlled by Ukrainian dispatchers.

The Ukrainian side was confused in the testimonies: at first its responsible persons claimed that the images from the radar screens were immediately sent to the Netherlands Security Council, then - that the Netherlands did not request them at all, and even later - that the Dnepropetrovsk radar was malfunctioning at the time of the accident. However, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation recorded July 17, 2014 the activity of Ukrainian ground tracking services.

The Boeing story begins to take a turn that is clearly unpleasant for Kiev and runs the risk of becoming another serious foreign policy problem for Vladimir Zelensky. One can only wonder if the decision of the Dutch deputies is somehow connected with the recent meeting of Zelensky and Trump, at which the American president advised the guest to negotiate with Russia.

Political scientist and TV presenter Dmitry Kulikov believes that soon the Netherlands can present new surprises to the Kiev elite.

“As soon as they begin to consider the participation of Ukraine, the question will be: where is the data of the radar and the control center from Dnepropetrovsk? This question will certainly arise, and the most interesting thing will begin there, ”Kulikov emphasized.