Investigators say Russian missile downed MH17 over Ukraine in 2014. Moscow calls conclusions ‘fakes’

Reporting from Moscow —  An international group of investigators said Thursday that its four-year probe found “legal and convincing evidence” that the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine belonged to the Russian army.

The Joint Investigative Team, at a news conference in the Netherlands, revealed a casing from what it said was the Buk missile responsible for the downing of the plane on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 aboard. Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said the team’s evidence would “stand in a courtroom” to prove that the missile came from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk.

The investigation’s new accusations come just three weeks before Russia is set to begin hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and the news adds to Cold War-like tensions between Moscow and the West.

Flight 17 was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when it was downed in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the plane’s passengers were Dutch.

A Dutch investigation in 2015 concluded the surface-to-air missile was of Russian origin but did not address where it came form. The investigating team’s evidence released Thursday was the clearest link yet to Russia’s involvement in the plane’s downing.

Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations, and on Thursday the Russian Ministry for Defense said its air defense missile systems never crossed the border from Russia into Ukraine. The ministry previously presented its own evidence suggesting that the Buk had been fired from the Ukrainian side, the ministry statement said, according to the Interfax news agency.

In a statement, the ministry said the investigative team should rely on “facts and testimony, and not on crafts of ‘fake-generators’” such as the Ukrainian security services and Bellingcat, a group of investigative journalists who have extensively investigated the downing of MH17.

“These fakes were disavowed and refuted by Russian experts,” the ministry statement said, according to Interfax.

The incident happened just months after the violent military conflict erupted between pro-Russia separatist fighters and Ukrainian government forces. Pieces of the plane and the bodies of the victims fell on rural village homes and sunflower fields.

The Ukrainian military immediately blamed the Russian-backed separatists for the attack, noting that rebels had shot down Ukrainian military planes just days before the passenger jet was hit.

While Russia denied involvement, its state-run media reported various theories about the plane’s explosion, including one that suggested the plane had been carrying dead bodies and was shot down by Ukrainian forces as a way of creating a scenario in which to blame Russia. Other reports claimed that the Ukrainian military fired at the plane because it believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was on board.

The release of the new evidence linking Russia to the plane crash is the latest in a series of events raising tensions between Moscow and the West.

Britain, whose soccer team will be a strong contender in the World Cup, has accused the Kremlin of being behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil. British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sergei and Julia Skripal were poisoned using a Soviet-made nerve agent called Novichok. Both were hospitalized and survived. Russia has denied the accusations and suggested that the British intelligence agents were behind the attempted assassination in order to paint a negative light on Russia ahead of the games.

The U.S. and Moscow have been in one of the worst diplomatic rows since the Cold War ended, after Washington accused the Kremlin of trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Earlier this week, relatives and friends of the Flight 17 victims wrote an open letter to the Kremlin published in one of Russia’s only independent newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, telling the Russian government that they blamed it for their loved ones’ death, asserting that “all the credible evidence points in that direction.” The letter’s authors wished Russia good luck hosting the World Cup, an international event that should bring the world together, while it criticized Russian state media for spreading fake stories about the plane crash.

“No, we do not blame the Russian people for what happened. We are not against you,” the letter said. “We hold the Russian state and its leaders as ultimately responsible for the deaths of our family members.”

sabra.ayres@latimes.com

Twitter: @sabraayres

Ayres is a special correspondent.