Relatives of the victims of MH17, a Malaysian Boeing shot down by Russian-led forces in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in summer 2014, have filed the largest class-action lawsuit against the Russian Federation and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We started work with a small number of citizens of Malaysia and Australia who I had established contact with from the very beginning. Now a large number of relatives of the victims have joined us, and our lawsuit has become the largest one. As of today, it includes 291 people together with the relatives," U.S. aviation lawyer Jerry Skinner said in an interview to Russia's Echo of Moscow website.
Skinner filed the lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights against the Russian Federation and personally Putin, seeking $330 million on behalf of the relatives of those killed in the crash.
UNIAN memo. Malaysia Airlines' MH17 Boeing 777 heading from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, over militant-occupied territory in Donetsk region. All 298 people on board who were citizens of 10 countries were killed in the crash. The majority of the victims, 196, were citizens of the Netherlands. The Dutch Safety Board October 13, 2015, issued a report on the causes of the accident. It was revealed that the plane had been shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile system. The Joint Investigation Team in its report published on September 28, 2016, confirmed that the plane had been downed by a Russian-made Buk brought to Ukraine from Russia. Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said his office had identified 100 "persons of interest" in the investigation, including those who organized the arrival of the rocket and oversaw its transportation from Russia to Ukraine and back.
