“Today was the last day of the MH17 trial. The verdict is due in November or December 2022,” the statement said.
Pulatov’s last word
Today, a suspected Russian soldier, Oleg Pulatov, who remotely took part in the process, criticized the accusation. In his opinion, it did everything to allegedly blame him for the plane crash.
“I have nothing to do with the disaster on July 17, 2014,” he said and called on the court to acquit him.
Who else is involved in the case
In addition to Pulatov, two other Russians Sergei Dubinsky (head of military intelligence) and Igor Girkin (former “defense minister” of the so-called “DPR”) and Ukrainian militant Leonid Kharchenko are also involved in the MH17 case.
According to the prosecution, they are responsible for the covert use of the Buk missile launcher.
What threatens the accused
In December 2021, prosecutors demanded life sentences for the defendants. Pulatov’s defense insists that the investigation was one-sided and it was never found out who exactly was to blame for the rocket launch.
None of the accused has been arrested to date. They live in Russia, which denies any involvement in the disaster and does not extradite its citizens.
The MH17 crash occurred on July 17, 2014 at the height of hostilities in the Donbas. In the sky over the Donetsk region, a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). As a result, all 283 passengers and 15 crew members died.
The flight lasted less than three hours when Ukrainian air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft at 16:20 Kyiv time. According to investigators, at that moment the liner was shot down by a Russian Buk missile. The fuselage broke into several pieces and fell on the occupied territory.
–
