MH17 verdict: How a video shot by militants changed everything

A 17-minute video shot by militants after MH17 was shot down will never be forgotten, writes Charles Miranda. See the video.

Opinion: For the 20 then children of a small orphanage in Rozsypne village in east Ukraine, the murder convictions of three men for the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 will matter little.

The children are not related to the 298 people, including 38 Australians, who were killed that day nor did they have any direct involvement in the two-year-and-eight-month Dutch court prosecution of the men.

But they will forever be scarred by the horror of that moment, 4.20pm, July 17, 2014 when the passenger flight was shot out of the sky by a Russian military missile.

They were finishing a picnic lunch and playing in the garden and stared up at what they first thought were “big birds” flapping out of the clouds before grimly realising they were human bodies including other children, half a dozen of whom would fall about their compound.

Inna Tipunova on July 20, three days after a woman in her 50s sitting in her MH17 seat came crashing through her house in the Village of Rozsypne near Donetsk. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Much of the wreckage would come down in the sunflower fields and rural villages of that Toraz district, scattering victims some still strapped to their seats including passenger “number 26” who crashed through the roof into the kitchen of 60-year-old Inna Tipunova’s home.

The two Russians and a Ukrainian dissident who were convicted of creating that horror are unlikely to ever spend a day in jail with Russia refusing to extradite them.

Bereft locals from the village of Rozsypne who witnessed bodies falling from the sky. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

But it’s others within the Kremlin right up to its deranged President Vladimir Putin that authorised the deployment of the missile system that should stand equally forever condemned.

Let’s not forget what this was about.

Yes the court may have found it was an accidental shooting but it was the first real shot in a broader agenda created, co-ordinated and enacted by Mr Putin and the Kremlin in a foreplay to his Ukraine invasion in February, eight years later.

I saw first-hand the indelible effect their war on this region since 2014 – and now the whole country of Ukraine – not just on the locals but also the families who lost loved ones in so senseless an act.

Watch the video below.

Journalist Charles Miranda with Dutch MH17 investigators giving lengthy recorded testimony related to evidence gathered. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

The transcription of a 17-minute handycam video shot by militants – obtained by this journalist who was then subpoenaed to give lengthy testimony to the Dutch court’s investigators – confirmed it was a likely accident, they thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian military aircraft.

But that should not absolve those who allowed the missile system to be dispatched from the Russian military base to Ukraine in the first place for the sole purpose of annexing half of that country to quench Mr Putin’s desire to recreate a Soviet Union.

For many families directly affected and many others including in east Ukraine, Friday’s decision will not erase their hurt, pain and even anger. And while it may close a chapter no-one should ever forget who was truly behind this despicable act and why.

Originally published as MH17 verdict: How a video shot by militants changed everything