A Dutch District Court’s recent verdict that three commanders of Russian-backed forces were guilty of downing Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, and murdering all 298 people on board was also significant for an underlying finding: a legal conclusion that the commanders’ forces in that area of eastern Ukraine were under the “overall control” of Russia.
The court found former Russian intelligence officers Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin and Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy and Ukrainian separatist Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko guilty of involvement in shooting down the plane with a Buk anti-aircraft missile as it was flying over eastern Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. A fourth suspect, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, was acquitted. The perpetrators were sentenced to life imprisonment and are jointly and severally liable for paying a total of 16 million euros to the victims’ next of kin. The men were tried in absentia, and as none appealed the judgment in the two weeks after the sentencing, the decision became final. (For further background on the case, see this earlier article on Just Security.)
While a criminal case against individuals in a domestic court of law cannot rule on the liability of another State (States are immune in foreign courts), the District Court of The Hague declared in its Nov. 17, 2022, ruling that the evidence it examined in this case clearly shows that the Kremlin in 2014 had “overall control” of the forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The court found that there was daily contact between the Kremlin and DPR leadership, and, that, while the identity of the crew of the Buk-TELAR missile system used to shoot down MH17 is unknown, they are assumed to be members of the Russian armed forces. In making those determinations, the court sent a clear message to Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world that the Kremlin’s denial of its involvement were lies. The court, moreover, said Russia on multiple occasions had fabricated evidence to claim that Ukraine was responsible for downing MH17, and that forensic investigation found clear signs the information submitted by Russia was manipulated.
Court: War was International Armed Conflict from Mid-May 2014
Contradicting Russia’s continued denial of its involvement in dividing the eastern Ukrainian region Donbas from Ukraine since 2014, the court concluded that Russia was so heavily involved in eastern Ukraine that from mid-May 2014, the criteria were met for an international(ized) armed conflict.