MH17 passengers’ relatives mark 10 years since plane was shot down over Ukraine, killing 298

Relatives of passengers killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine gathered with officials at Australia’s Parliament House on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the tragedy that claimed 298 lives.

One of those relatives, Paul Guard, mostly blames the conflict raging in eastern Ukraine a decade ago for the missile attack that killed 38 Australian citizens and permanent residents including his parents, Toowoomba doctors Roger and Jill Guard.

“I don’t think anyone intended to bring down a passenger plane. So in that sense, I’m heartbroken that the conflict continues,” Paul Guard told Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC).

“But I think that a lot of families would really have just liked an acknowledgement that what happened was wrong and that Russia should not have been waging war,” the son added.

The conflict has since escalated into a full-scale war with Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor in February 2022.

The pro-Russia rebel-held border region from where a Soviet-era Buk surface-to-air missile was fatefully launched and the fields where much of the debris landed after the Boeing 777 disintegrated is now territory controlled by the Russian military.

Moscow has repeatedly denied responsibility for MH17’s destruction and refused to hand over two Russians and a Ukrainian convicted by a Dutch court in absentia in 2022 of murder.

Russia continues to be pursued under international law by the Netherlands through the European Court of Human Rights and by Australia and the Netherlands jointly through the International Civil Aviation Organization Council, or ICAO, over its alleged role in bringing down MH17.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told Wednesday’s service she was “appalled” that Russia had withdrawn from the ICAO proceedings in June.

“The case will continue and we will not be deterred in our commitment to hold Russia to account,” Wong told the gathering that included foreign diplomats.

“Today, on behalf of the Australian government, I recommit again to our collective pursuit of truth, justice and accountability for the outrages perpetrated on 17th July, 2014,” she added.

A commemoration is also planned in the Netherlands later Wednesday at a monument near Schiphol Airport, from where MH17 left on its way to the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur.

Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will represent Australia at that monument, where 298 trees were planted to commemorate each victim and sunflowers like those that grew at the crash site.

He expected the Netherlands-Australia case against Russia would be back before the ICAO in October despite Moscow’s withdrawal.

“We won’t let this go until we’ve brought Russia to account,” Dreyfus said.

The Netherlands was home to 196 victims. As well as Australia, victims also came from Malaysia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, the Philippines, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam, Israel, Italy, Romania, the United States and South Africa.

An international investigation initiated in the U.N. Security Council by the Netherlands, Malaysia and Australia concluded that the Buk missile system that destroyed MH17 belonged to the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. The investigation concluded the missile was driven into Ukraine from a Russian military base near the city of Kursk and returned there after the plane was shot down.

Tony Abbott was Australia’s prime minister when MH17 was shot down. Abbott recalled on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin became physically aggressive when the Australian raised MH17 and the Ukraine conflict on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in Beijing in 2014.

Putin said through an interpreter that Ukrainians were all fascists, had brought down MH17 themselves and that Ukraine had no right to exist, Abbott said.

“Then as we were going back into the conference — and this was really quite an extraordinary thing — he suddenly turned, grabbed the elbows and tried to shake me and then pushed me away. And he said in English, where he’s quite fluent: ‘Look, you are not a native Australian but I am a native Russian,’ and pushed me away,” Abbott told ABC.

“I think what he was trying to say to me in his own rather blunt and brutal way was that how could I as a citizen of a settler society understand the blood and soil and mystical attachment that he had to every last inch of Mother Russia?” Abbott said.

“So it was pretty obvious to me right back then what he was on about. I just think it’s a pity that more wasn’t done to arm up the Ukrainians in the meantime,” Abbott added.