A missile system from the 53rd anti-aircraft brigade of the Russian Armed Forces was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, prosecutors investigating the disaster said on Thursday.
The airliner was hit by a Russian-made missile on July 17, 2014, with 298 people on board, two-thirds of them Dutch, over territory held by pro-Russian separatists. All aboard died.
The investigators don't know who was operating the system (and I doubt Russian troops pulled the trigger, but who knows?). But given the situation in the Donbas, the Russian missile system from a Russian air defense brigade no doubt went to people Russia supported in the subliminal Russian invasion of Ukraine that began with the seizure of Crimea and expanded to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Yet four years later, concluding what we knew very shortly after the attack but which Russia denied (and Russia sent out a flurry of bullshit explanations to confuse people about the blame) will do what?
The international community will shrug its collective sainted shoulders and say it is "old news."
And Russia still occupies Crimea and the eastern Donbas.
