On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board.
The Ukrainian government and the West blame eastern Ukrainian militia for the incident, while the independence supporters say they do not have weapons capable of bringing down a plane flying at over 30,000 feet.
“It is widely felt in our circles that the MH17 crash in Ukraine is used to implement harsh measures against all the Russian-speaking communities, not only against Russia, and to find a pretext for continuing the conflict… Scarcely had the plane fallen to the ground, when Washington already knew who was to blame for the crash,” Willy Wimmer said.
The Western stance on the catastrophe causes great “indignation,” Wimmer said, stressing that attempts to use the crash to fuel the conflict in Ukraine are inhumane and “heinous.”
The official international investigation into the MH17 crash is currently underway. According to the Dutch Safety Board’s preliminary report, the plane broke up in mid-air after being hit by a number of high-energy objects that penetrated the plane from the outside. A final report is due in October.
