Australia sanctions three MH17 perpetrators

The two Russians and one Ukrainian played roles in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which killed 298 people including 38 Australians.

The reconstruction of the MH17 wreckage. Picture: Piroschka van de Wouw / Getty

The government has announced targeted sanctions on three people it claims were involved in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 that killed all 298 on board, including 38 Australian citizens or residents.

The financial and travel sanctions will be applied on Russian nationals Sergey Dubinskiy and Sergey Muchkaev, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.

Dubinskiy and Kharchenko, were both found guilty in November last year by the District Court of The Hague in the Netherlands for their contribution in downing flight MH17.

The pair are understood to have been leaders of the so-called People’s Republic of Donetsk, a pro-Russian separatist group that proclaimed itself a part of Russia just days before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Sergey Dubinskiy.

The third convicted perpetrator, Igor Girkin, was already sanctioned in 2014.

The other sanctioned man, Muchkaev, was a colonel in the Russian armed forces who commanded the anti-aircraft missile brigade that supplied the projectile that downed the flight, prosecutors in The Hague claimed.

To mount the sanctions, the government relied on legislated powers that provide grounds for sanctions on individuals who are “responsible for, or complicit in, the threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.

Australia has been an active player in the international effort to seek accountability for the attack on MH17, which was scheduled to fly from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, but was shot down by pro-­Russian forces near the Russian-Ukrainian border.