Dutch Official Says Russia Must Accept Blame for 2014 Attack on Jet

Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday. Russia, he said, has offered nothing but “denials, distortions of reality and disinformation.”CreditJustin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

Days after a consortium of international investigators announced that Russia was the source of a missile that shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine four years ago, the foreign minister of the Netherlands on Tuesday challenged Russia to “accept its responsibility” for the deaths of 298 people killed in the attack.

Foreign Minister Stef Blok of the Netherlands, whose country has taken a lead role in the investigation, told journalists ahead of a United Nations Security Council session on the war in Ukraine that he had come to New York to confront the Russian delegation “eye to eye” in the hope of compelling Russia to cooperate in the investigation and bring those responsible for downing the airliner to justice.

So far, Mr. Blok said, that cooperation has not been forthcoming.

“Unfortunately, since the day of the crash, Russia has done its best to bring about conspiracy theories, denials, distortions of reality and disinformation,” Mr. Blok said.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily A. Nebenzya, reiterated his country’s longstanding insistence that Russia had nothing to do with shooting down the aircraft. He also accused investigators of ignoring evidence he claimed undermined the Western consensus that Russian forces or the Ukrainian separatists they supported were responsible.

New York Times