Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that if the world had punished Russia for what it did in 2014 when Boeing flight MH17 was shot down in Donbass, there would have been no invasion of Ukraine. He said this during an address to the Australian House of Representatives.
"I think every one of us remembers the tragedy of MH17, which was shot down by Russian occupiers in the skies over Ukrainian Donbas. 298 people were killed then... Was it possible to bring to justice those who caused this tragedy? No, they are hiding on Russian territory and apparently received security guarantees from Russia. Has Russia paid compensation to the relatives of the dead? No, it still denies its involvement," Zelensky said.
The president stressed that the mistakes of the past must be corrected.
"How many more tragedies has Russia created or will create? It is often said: unpunished evil returns, emboldened by a sense of omnipotence. If the world punished Russia for what it did in 2014, there would be none of the horrors in Ukraine in 2022. We need to correct such terrible mistakes now," Zelensky noted.
Recall that on July 17, 2014, the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down in the sky over the Donetsk region. All 298 people on board were killed.
On May 24, 2018, the Joint Investigative Team investigating the crash of flight MH17 determined that the plane was shot down by a Buk self-propelled launcher belonging to the 53rd Brigade from Kursk in the Russian Federation.
In June 2019, investigators named four suspects involved in the MH17 crash.
The MH17 trial at the District Court in The Hague began on March 9 last year. The trial concerns the first four defendants in the shooting down of flight MH17. The suspects are three citizens of Russia and one citizen of Ukraine - Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko, who are accused of involvement in the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.
