Russia rejected ICAO ruling

Prior to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's visit to Moscow recently, the ICAO issued a statement to rule Russia was responsible for the downing of Malaysia's MAS MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in July 2014. 

The timing was uncanny and puts pressure on the Malaysian Prime Minister to raise it in the meeting with Russian President Vladimar Putin. Opposition politicians demanded the matter to be inappropriately raised at the official visit intended to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties.  

Be that as it may and it was raised.

A background check on ICAO found it to be a post-World War II effort by the American to establish an international standard and procedure for peaceful global civil aviation. 

In Chicago 1944, 52 of the 54 countries in attendant signed the new Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention. ICAO was born and safe to assume it was American controlled from the onset.  

The ICAO statement on MH17 stem from investigation by "the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT), which in 2016 reported that the aircraft had been downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine", to quote from Wikipedia. 

There were other investigations which came to the same conclusion, but none involved Russian and also Malaysian. 

Expectedly the Russian are quite aware of ICAO and did not acknowledge the investigation finding. Veera Pandiyan wrote on the latest MH17 development in The Star today:

Many rulings, no smoking gun

Wednesday, 21 May 2025

“WE saw the take-off. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this airplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from.”

Famous words spoken by former US secretary of state John Kerry to explain the downing of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

This was supposed to be the “smoking gun” evidence of the Russian Federation’s guilt in committing the heinous act.

And yet in spite of a United Nations Security Council resolution, two investigations – one technical and the other criminal, an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, and the latest decision by the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), there has been no clear and indisputable evidence to show that Russia was the culprit.

Immediately after the tragedy, Kerry and other top US officials accused Russia of giving separatist rebels the BUK anti-aircraft missile system capable of downing a plane flying at 33,000 feet.

The rebels were fighting the US-backed Ukrainian regime which had ousted elected president Viktor Yanukovych during the Maidan protests, five months earlier.

Based on Kerry’s statements, if there was indeed satellite imagery of the BUK missile strike on MH17, it has not shown up anywhere in the investigations.

Also, the place where the supposed launch occurred has remained a mystery.

In its final report on the crash, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) estimated the site to be within a 320sq km area.

This covered territory under both Ukrainian and separatist forces.

The DSB did not seek to identify which side fired the fateful missile.

Almaz-Antey, the Russian arms manufacturer of the BUK missiles, conducted its own tests on the likely firing location and placed it in a much smaller area near the village of Zaroshchenskoye, about 20km west of the DSB’s zone – in an area under Ukrainian control.

On Jan 31 last year, judges at the ICJ declined to rule on allegations brought by Kiev that Moscow was responsible for the shooting down of MH17.

MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was struck down over the Donbas region of Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

The majority of the passengers – 193 people – were from the Netherlands, including an American with dual citizenship; 15 members of the crew were among the 43 Malaysians who perished.

Of the remaining passengers, 27 were Australians, 12 Indonesians, 10 Britons, four Belgians, four Germans, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one New Zealander.

The air tragedy happened amid raging battles between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

On May 12 this year, two days before Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s visit to Russia, ICAO agreed with the claims raised by Australia and the Netherlands that Russia was responsible for the air tragedy.

Anwar pledged in a Facebook post last week that he would continue to press for accountability over the air catastrophe.

“Malaysia remains resolute in ensuring accountability and a just resolution for the victims and their families who continue to bear the weight of this tragedy,” he wrote.

Anwar said Putin had expressed condolences to the families of those killed on board MH17 and had also called for a thorough and comprehensive investigation that was not politicised.

The PM said Putin told him that Russia was ready to cooperate to ensure the report was more credible or authoritative.

In 2020, Dutch prosecutors accused Russia of trying to sabotage the investigation into the crash. The court later convicted two Russian intelligence agents and a Ukrainian separatist leader in absentia for their roles in the attack.

On May 12, the ICAO’s 36 council members voted that Russia failed to meet its obligations under international air law in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014.

The case, filed in March 2022, was based on allegations that the conduct of Russia in the downing of the plane constituted a breach of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, which requires states to “refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight”.

This was the first time in ICAO’s history that it decided this under its dispute settlement mechanism.

Before the vote was taken, the proceedings involved written submissions and oral hearings.

Russia has flatly rejected ICAO’s ruling, describing it as “biased”.

It said the text of the ruling, including the reasoning behind it, was not given.

“Therefore, this amounts to a blind vote. It is quite obvious that this decision does not hold water.”

According to Russia, the council had claimed judiciary powers that it did not have.

It later tried to admit as evidence the two investigations – by the Dutch Security Council and the Joint Investigation Team – which explicitly excluded Russia while welcoming Ukraine and other adversely interested parties.

“The ICAO Council is not the right place to look for the truth. It makes no sense for us to remain a part of the ‘performance’,” the Russian foreign ministry said then.

Russia had initially agreed to take part in the proceedings.

“We proposed a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the crash, as required by UN Security Council Resolution 2166 and the ICAO Dispute Resolution Rules, but the council refused.

“Ruled by the countries of the collective West and their satellites, the council also refused to take into account the decision of the ICJ, which rejected Ukraine’s claims against Russia,” the ministry noted.

Russia said the council’s 36 members voted according to instructions from their governments, adding that Australia and 12 other countries had already publicly blamed Russia for MH17 even before any investigation began.

Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this observation of Leo Tolstoy’s: Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

Al fatihah.

In memory of Chief Steward, Mohamed Ghaffar Abu Bakar, much loved by his colleagues and community. 

This blogger had the honour to participate in the jenazah prayer for his remain at a mosque in Ampang Kuala Lumpur. And throughout the MH370 and MH17 incident, the wife was responsible as caregiver for the family of the deceased MAS staff.