UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) – A court for the prosecution of those responsible for the crash of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight in eastern Ukraine can be created without the participation of the UN Security Council, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations said Friday.
"I think that the UN Security Council is not a place to discuss different versions of the MH17 [crash]… There are or can be created appropriate mechanisms for the subsequent trial without the involvement of the UN Security Council that should not deal with criminal cases," Vitaly Churkin said in a statement on the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN website.
Moscow asserted it would continue to assist an impartial probe into the tragedy that left 298 people dead, insisting upon the necessity to wait for the Dutch Safety Board, charged with the inquiry into the crash, to release their final report.
The board's preliminary report, released in September 2014, suggested that the plane broke up in mid-air after being hit by numerous high-energy objects that had penetrated it from the outside.