Russia has to compensate for the shooting down of a Malaysian plane over Ukraine in 2014, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) declares. The United Nations aviation agency stated that Russia was to blame for the shooting down of a Malaysian plane over Ukraine in 2014 that claimed the lives of all 298 people on board.
With 38 Australian nationals and 196 Dutch nationals aboard the plane when it was shot down, the two countries urged Russia to accept responsibility for the attack and compensate. But Russia has denied any responsibility for the plane’s downing ever since. Late on Monday, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) stated that Australia and the Netherlands’ complaints about the shooting down of flight MH17 were “well-founded in fact and law”.
“The Russian Federation did not respect its obligations under international air law in the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17,” the agency stated. Under international air law, a differentiation between military and commercial or other aircraft has to be made in the context of warfare.
Russia was not a nation that took part in the investigation of this event. Thus, we do not accept all these biased conclusions,” the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement to reporters. Although the ICAO has no regulatory authority, it exercises moral suasion and establishes global aviation standards followed by its 193-member states.
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp stated in a statement that the ICAO’s decision in the case initiated in 2022 was an “important step towards establishing the truth and achieving justice”. This ruling also sends a clear message to the international community: States cannot violate international law with impunity,” he said.
