Reuters

On July 9, Malaysia submitted a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for establishing an international tribunal to investigate downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine last year.

On July 10, permanent representative of Russia to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin criticized a draft resolution of the UN Security Council and the statute of the international tribunal proposed by Malaysia and the Netherlands to prosecute those responsible for the downing of flight MH17. Russian top officials have been defying vote on the draft resolution ever since.

UNIAN's memo. Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed in Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. There is mounting evidence the plane was shot down by a powerful Buk-M anti-aircraft missile system. All 298 people on board were killed. Most of the passengers, 194, were Dutch citizens, while 43 people, including all of the aircraft's crew, were citizens of Malaysia.

The plane crashed near Shakhtarsk in Donetsk region, in an area controlled by Russian-backed militants.

The bodies of the crash victims were transferred to the Netherlands for forensic medical examination and identification.

On July 24, Ukraine delegated the investigation of the aircraft crash to the Netherlands.

Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Ukraine appealed to the UN Security Council to set up an international criminal tribunal.