11 years later, shooting down passenger jet MH17 could finally catch up with Putin

The UN's aviation council has ruled Russia was responsible for downing the Malaysian airliner, killing 298 people - paving the way for accountability

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For the decade after flight MH17 was shot out of the sky over Ukraine, justice proved elusive.

As journalists investigated, then prosecutors, then a Dutch court, and, on Monday, a UN agency, steadily more fingers pointed at Russia and Vladimir Putin.

While the new ruling does not bring immediate consequences for the 2014 attack, which killed 298 people, it could still harm Putin.

The decision, by the multinational Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), could darken opinions of Putin in countries where he is still admired.

It could – one day – also lead to Russia paying out for the shooting down of the passenger jet.

MH17, a Malaysia Airlines service from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down on 17 July, 2014, by a surface-to-air missile.

The strike came from a Russian launcher active in eastern Ukraine, during fighting between Ukrainian forces and separatists supported by Moscow, six years before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The ruling amplifies diplomatic pressure on Russia and is notable as another Russian breach of international law, said Stephen Hall, a professor in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at the University of Bath.

Vladimir Putin speaks at a forum in Moscow in April (Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Kremlin Pool via AP)

“The fact that the international organisation that represents the world community has come out and said this, I think, does put pressure on the Kremlin at least to try and find a way around the tarnishing of its image,” Hall said.

“It does show that even the United Nations has come out and seen from the evidence that they were able to find from MH17 that the Kremlin was behind this.”

The Kremlin had rejected the findings of a 2022 trial in the Netherlands – which was home to around 200 of the victims – that Russia was to blame.

Hall said that “the Kremlin could hide behind the idea that the Dutch were an unfriendly country because they support Nato and support Ukraine in the war.”

However, he added that “it’s very hard for them to be able to do the same about the United Nations, although I have already seen that they are desperately trying, claiming that the United Nations is now a servant of America.”

A pro-Russian rebel at MH17 crash site near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine days after the passenger plane was brought down in July 2014 (Photo/Vadim Ghirda/AP)

The ruling also helps dispel false claims from the Kremlin that Ukraine was responsible, Hall said. “It’s also a way to highlight to the international community, and particularly the Global South, that Russia is indicted for this, that this is something that the Kremlin has been involved in and that… this is an instance of a Russian war crime.”

The UN agency ruling could also prove significant in setting the stage for frozen Russian assets to be used for reparations, Hall explained.

Many Russian assets located in other countries have been locked down since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched in 2022. The EU and other nations have considered using them, even against Russia’s will, to fund reparations for Kyiv.

Hall said the UN could potentially do the same in this case, arguing that Russia would never volunteer to offer compensation while Putin was in charge.

“So it’s certainly difficult, but it’s at least a legal indictment of the Kremlin, of Russia, of Putin, and perhaps in the future… there may be some reckoning,” he said.