Russia denies involvement in 2014 Ukraine plane crash

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday (local time) dismissed the findings by Joint Investigation Team as per which, the Buk anti-aircraft missile system used to launch the missile at the airliner belonged to Air Defence Brigade 53 and arrived in Ukraine from Russia.

As per an official press release, the accusations are aimed at discrediting Russia in front of the International community with respect to the deadly incident of Malaysian Boeing crash in 2014 which left almost 300 people dead.

It further noted visual evidence submitted in the court which it says to be based on data fabricated by Bellingcat bloggers, who were previously found to be distorting facts to support the hypothesis of Russia's involvement in the crash of the airliner.

It also accused JIT of jumping to the conclusion before Russia could finish examining the requests for legal assistance from the Dutch Prosecutor's Office.

The release mentioned that Russia has given full assistance in the process of investigation as it hosted Dutch experts and investigators of the Dutch Prosecutor's Office in Moscow, declassified and handed over technical and design data of the Buk missiles to the investigators, and provided the results of a full-scale experiment carried out by Almaz-Antey, the manufacturer of this type of anti-aircraft missile systems.

Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry further said that it will continue its assistance to the investigators to help to bring the true perpetrators to light.