The MH17 investigation believes that Putin personally made the decision to send a Buk missile to Donbass (the one that shot down the Malaysian Boeing)

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) investigating the downing of flight MH17 in the skies over Donbass in 2014 "has strong grounds to believe" that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sanctioned the delivery of a Buk anti-aircraft missile system to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, which then fired a missile at the Malaysian Boeing. This was stated by representatives of the JIT at a press conference in The Hague on February 8, as reported by AP.

However, they stated that at this stage the investigation had reached its limits and was suspended. “Despite the fact that much new information has been discovered about the various persons involved, the evidence is not yet concrete enough to lead to new prosecutions,” it was announced at a press conference.

As representatives of the Dutch prosecutor's office added, as long as Vladimir Putin remains the president of the Russian Federation, he retains immunity from criminal prosecution and cannot be a suspect in the investigation.

The press conference on the MH17 case also played a recording of a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and the head of the self-proclaimed LPR Igor Plotnitsky, which took place in November 2017. This conversation, investigators believe, shows how deeply Putin was personally involved in the actions of separatists in Donbas.

• In November 2022, a court in The Hague sentenced two Russian citizens, Igor Girkin (Strelkov) and Sergey Dubinsky, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko, accused in the MH17 crash case, to life imprisonment in absentia. They were also ordered to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims in the amount of 16 million euros. The fourth defendant in the case, Russian citizen Oleg Pulatov, was fully acquitted. The court also pointed out that in 2014, when the Malaysian Boeing was shot down, the self-proclaimed DPR was under Russian control. It received Russian weapons and funding, and Russian troops were also fighting in the Donbas.
• Despite the verdict, the international investigation decided to continue its work to find new suspects in the case. Russia denies its involvement in the Boeing crash.