KIEV, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's authorities on Wednesday brought charges against three Russians and one Ukrainian in organizing and aiding a terrorist act that led to the 2014 deadly crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine.
The investigative department of the Security Service of Ukraine drew notices of suspicion respectively to Russian nationals Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulatov, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. The first two are suspected in organizing the terrorist act while the latter are suspected of aiding it.
The MH17 crashed in Ukraine on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) concluded two years later that a Russian-made Buk missile shot down the airliner, killing all 298 people on board.
The JIT announced earlier Wednesday in the Netherlands that the above four people will be prosecuted for alleged involvement in the downing, and it will ask Ukraine and Russia authorities to hand over them for a March 2020 trial near Amsterdam.
Russia Foreign Ministry later dismissed charges against the Russian nationals as "absolutely unfounded." The country had repeatedly denied any role in the crash.
The JIT team, comprises police and judicial authorities of the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, Ukraine, and European Union, said that the missile was brought from Russia to eastern Ukraine then controlled by separatists and was finally launched there.
At the time of the downing, Girkin was the defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) in eastern Ukraine, Dubinsky was head of DNR's military intelligence agency, while Pulatov and Kharchenko led the agency's branches.
