More than 80 relatives of MH17 crash victims to demand compensations

"The claims for compensation were received from 84 relatives of the deceased," head judge Hendrik Steenhuis said during the trial that began in the Netherlands today, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The relatives of the crash victims, as well as the lawyers of one of the suspects, the GRU Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Pulatov, are present in the courtroom.

The trial can be followed live via this link.

On June 19, 2019, the international Joint Investigation Team named four suspects believed to be involved in the transportation and combat use of the Buk missile system, from which MH17 flight had been downed. Three of them are Russians: Igor Girkin (Strelkov), former colonel in Russia's FSB intelligence service and former so-called defense minister of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”; Sergey Dubinskiy, general (at the time of downing – colonel) of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and head of the so-called “Main Intelligence Directorate of the Donetsk People’s Republic”; Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The fourth suspect is Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian civilian, who fought on the side of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic.”

Oleg Pulatov expressed a desire to join the legal proceedings and will be represented in court by a Dutch law firm.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over conflict-hit Donbas in July 2014. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. All of them died. The JIT reported that the plane had been shot down from a Buk missile system that belongs to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Kursk.

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