As journalists investigated, then prosecutors, then a Dutch court, and, on Monday, a UN agency, steadily more fingers pointed at Russia and Vladimir Putin.
The decision, by the multinational Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization, could darken opinions of Putin in countries where he is still admired.
MH17, a Malaysia Airlines service from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down on 17 July, 2014, by a surface-to-air missile.
The ruling amplifies diplomatic pressure on Russia and is notable as another Russian breach of international law, said Stephen Hall, a professor in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at the University of Bath.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a forum in Moscow in April, 2025. (Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik/AP)Read Next
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“It does show that even the United Nations has come out and seen from the evidence that they were able to find from MH17 that the Kremlin was behind this.”
Hall said that “the Kremlin could hide behind the idea that the Dutch were an unfriendly country because they support Nato and support Ukraine in the war.”
Presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis, other trial judges and lawyers view the reconstructed wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, at the Gilze-Rijen military airbase, southern Netherlands in May, 2021 (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP)
The ruling also helps dispel false claims from the Kremlin that Ukraine was responsible, Hall said.
A way to make Russia pay
The UN agency ruling could also prove significant in setting the stage for frozen Russian assets to be used for reparations, Hall said.
Hall said the UN could potentially do the same here, arguing that Russia would never volunteer compensation while Putin is in charge.
“So it’s certainly difficult, but it’s at least a legal indictment of the Kremlin, of Russia, of Putin, and perhaps in the future… there may be some reckoning,” he said.
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