Dutch prosecutors indict four MH17 case defendants
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service has brought charges against four defendants in the case concerning the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, TASS reports, citing Yelena Kutina, the attorney of one of the defendants. The four defendants have been summoned for investigative action.
The international Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) four suspects are: Oleg “Caliph” Pulatov, Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, Sergey “Gloomy” Dubinsky and Leonid “Mole” Kharchenko. All four are believed to have been involved in the transportation of the Buk anti-air missile system that was used to shoot down the airliner over the Donbas.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 flying the MH17 route from Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) was shot down over Ukraine’s Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed.
A joint investigation by Bellingcat and The Insider made it possible to identify the key suspects in the case, with the aliases “Orion” and “Dolphin”. Dolphin turned out to be Colonel-General Nikolay Fedorovich Tkachev, chief inspector of Russia’s Central Military District. Independent analyses have confirmed that Tkachev’s voice is identical to the voice of the person wanted by the investigation.
Orion is Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov, an active General in Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), also known Andrey Laptev, former defense minister of South Ossetia. Ivannikov has coordinated the activity of the Russian troops in Ukraine, and has also commanded the Wagner Private Military Company.