Moscow, February 17. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Dutch Ambassador Gilles Beschoor Plug on Friday to protest Amsterdam’s ‘unfounded’ attempts to accuse Moscow of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines plane in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
“He has been asked to put an end to the repeated attempts by the Dutch authorities to hold the Russian Federation responsible for the MH17 accident,” the official statement read.
According to Moscow, the work of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to clarify the events has been “politicized” and dedicated to “adjusting” the evidence to the “pre-selected version of the tragedy”.
Moreover, the JIT’s decision to cease its work, according to Moscow, “is further proof that the prosecution has exhausted the arguments in favor of its unilateral adversarial version”.
The Kremlin assured earlier this month that it does not accept the results of international investigations into the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane that accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin, since Russia cannot participate in the investigations.
“Russia has not participated in this investigation in any way and therefore we cannot accept its results,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The Dutch prosecutor’s office and the MH17 joint investigation team said Putin personally authorized the delivery of air defense systems to pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass, including the Buk missile system that shot down the plane in Ukraine.
However, the Russian president has presidential immunity which prevents him from being prosecuted, according to the JIT.