Malaysian PM discusses MH17 plane crash with Vladimir Putin; Russia rejects UN findings

The Malaysian prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, is said to have discussed the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 crash with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ibrahim visited Moscow after a UN aviation council had ruled that Russia was responsible for taking down the passenger flight in 2014. Russia did not accept the council’s findings.

During the conversation, Putin denied that Russia is unwilling to cooperate. “But he cannot cooperate with organizations that consider Russia to be non-independent,” the Malaysian prime minister said in a statement. Ibrahim added that Putin offered his condolensces to the victims of the crash.

Russia was reportedly willing to cooperate with the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to ensure that the ruling was credible. "I mentioned that this is a report made by ICAO, to which he (Putin) replied that from the beginning, he had requested that the investigation be independent and thorough,” Ibrahim said.

The ICAO ruling was regarding a case that was initiated by the Netherlands and Australia in 2022. A plane with 300 passengers was shot down over Ukraine on July 17, 2014. It has been determined by investigators that the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a Russian BUK missile. Investigators have stated that Putin played an integral in providing weapons to pro-Russian separatists, which led to the downing of the MH17 plane. Of the 298 victims of the MH17 plane crash, 196 were from the Netherlands, but dozens of Australians and Malaysians were also among the dead.

The Netherlands and Australia have now pushed the ICAO to force Russia into entering talks on possible reparations, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Caspar Veldkamp, said.

In November 2022, the court in The Hague sentenced rebel leader Igor Girkin, his right-hand man Sergei Dubinsky, and garrison commander Leonid Chartshenko to life in prison for their role in the downing of flight MH17.