Donetsk, Sep 30 – DAN. The conclusions of the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) about the Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane crash are "too premature", said the head of DPR delegation to Minsk Denis Pushilin.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on 17 July 2014 near Torez, 40 km from the Russia-Ukraine border, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
"I don’t find this information objective as it doesn’t include Russia’s data. I mean the first-hand radar data that could have clarified a lot of aspects of the atrocity. I have a lot of questions to the Ukrainian side, why they did not provide its radiolocation services data, why the USA did not provide it," Pushilun said.
"And I put the grounds for JIC conclusions in question, even if they are preliminary. I would rather say too premature," he stated.
Pushilin added he hoped that the investigation will be guided by trustworthy facts.
"I remind that we have neither Buk air defense system nor trained personnel to operate this rather complicated system," he reiterated.
The independent joint investigation team (JIT) led by Dutch authorities includes experts from Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine and Belgium. On September, 28 JIC released its preliminary findings on the investigation. The report claims that MH17 was downed by a missile launched by Buk air defense system brought in from Russia. According to the JIT, the missile was launched from a farmland near Pervomayskoye, to the south of Snezhnoye, which was under control of Donbass militias. So far investigators have not had enough time to analyze Russia-provided data that disproves the findings.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the objectivity of the findings of an international was doubtful. “Investigation findings presented on the briefing are based on two main sources: internet and Ukrainian intelligence. Consequently, the objectivity of such data and the findings based thereon cannot but cause doubt”, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the ministry, said.