November 17, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The families of the victims of the MH17 tragedy were awarded damages exceeding $16.5 million by a Dutch court on Thursday.  

After assessing the 306 claims for compensation, according to Ukrainian law, "compensation for moral damages, including emotional damages" was "granted for a total amount exceeding 16 million euros ($16.5million)," a press release from the Hague District Court said. 

The press release noted that although under Ukrainian law, same-sex partners are not entitled to claim compensation, the court decided not to apply that exclusion as it would "violate the prohibition on discrimination." 

The three accused, Leonid Kharchenko, Sergey Dubinskiy and Igor Girkin, were all sentenced to life imprisonment after the court ruled that downing Flight MH17 bore such "devastating consequences" that "a limited period of imprisonment will not suffice," according to the press release.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that he is trying to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following what he called an “unintentional incident” that left two people dead on Tuesday when a missile landed in the Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine.

Duda said that all three parties – Poland, Ukraine and the US – are collecting information on their end, reinstating that what happened on Tuesday was a “tragic” accident.

“Nobody wanted to hurt anyone in Poland,” Duda said, adding that “so far, we haven't found any traces of the second missile on Polish territory.”

“This is a difficult time for this small community,” he said, and “the families ask that their pain and privacy be respected.”

A Dutch court's Thursday verdict, which found two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist guilty of mass murder for their role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, marked “an important day for justice and accountability,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also welcomed the verdict, saying the decision "is an important moment in ongoing efforts to deliver justice" for the victims.

Blinken added that "more work lies ahead to meet the UN Security Council’s demand in resolution 2166 that 'those responsible … be held to account.'”

Earlier, the court stated that "the consequences [of their actions] are so severe and the attitude of the accused is so detestable that a mere time-prescribed sentence would not suffice."

The men all refused to take part in the trial and were tried in absentia, meaning it is highly unlikely they will serve those sentences.

The Russian military hit a Ukrainian command post and communications center in a recently liberated part of the Kherson region, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said that Russia's aviation, missile forces and artillery had been in action and had hit "the command post of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement Naddnipryanske and the communications center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement Chernobaevka" in the Kherson region.

Both places are close to the city of Kherson, on the west bank of the Dnipro River, and were taken back by Ukrainian forces last week.

The defense ministry said 74 artillery units had been hit.

In Zaporizhzhia — also in southern Ukraine — Russian forces destroyed the workshops of the Iskra research and production complex, which produced electronic components for the repair of radar stations and multiple launch rocket systems, the ministry added.

A source in the president's office in Kyiv has confirmed to CNN that Ukrainian investigators have arrived at the site in Poland struck by a missile on Tuesday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded Wednesday that a Ukrainian team should be allowed to join the investigation, which is being led by Polish and US experts.

The conviction of three Russians and a separatist Ukrainian in the shooting down of flight MH17 in summer 2014 is an important step but not a final conclusion, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said following the verdict. 

A Dutch judge found the three men guilty of mass murder in the downing of the plane, which killed all 298 people onboard, mainly of them Dutch nationals.

He warned that all parties have the right to appeal. “But to reiterate, an important step has been taken today, and hopefully it will feel that way to the victim’s next of kin too,” he added.

Ukrainian specialists will join the work of the joint international investigative commission at the site in Poland struck by a missile on Tuesday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"I don't know what happened. We don't know for sure. The world does not know. But I am sure that it was a Russian missile, I am sure that we fired from air defense systems," Zelensky said.

Only after the investigation would it be possible to draw conclusions about which missile fell on the territory of Poland, he said. 

Separately, a source in the president's office confirmed to CNN that a Ukrainian team is being allowed access to the site in Poland where Polish and US investigators are working.

A Dutch court has sentenced two Russian nationals and one Ukrainian separatist to life imprisonment after they were convicted for their roles in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which killed all 298 people onboard.

The court found that "only the highest appropriate prison sentence would be appropriate" for former Russian intelligence officers Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Ukrainian separatist leader Leonid Kharchenko.

The court stated that "the consequences [of their actions] are so severe and the attitude of the accused is so detestable that a mere time-prescribed sentence would not suffice."

The men all refused to take part in the trial and were tried in absentia, meaning it is highly unlikely they will serve those sentences.

A Dutch court has convicted two Russians and one Ukrainian separatist of murder for their roles in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.

Russian nationals Igor Girkin, a former colonel of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and Sergey Dubinskiy, who was employed by Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU, were convicted along with Ukrainian separatist Leonid Kharchenko, who had no military background but is believed to have led a combat unit in Donetsk in July 2014.

A fourth suspect, Russian national Oleg Pulatov, a former soldier of the Russian special forces Spetsnaz-GRU, was acquitted.

The plane was flying over a region at the epicenter of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces -- the precursor to the current war.

The men refused to attend the trial and were tried in absentia at Schiphol Judicial Complex in Badhoevedorp, the Netherlands. 

Hendrik Steenhuis, the presiding judge, cited the wealth of evidence for the court's decision and ruled out any alternative explanations for the incident.

The court found that a Russian Buk missile was used to bring down the plane and that Moscow was in control of the separatists at the time of the attack.

The court found that the missile launch was carried out deliberately, citing the fact that firing a Buk missile involves a complex process, but believed that the operators likely thought they were targeting a military aircraft rather than a passenger jet.

Steenhuis said those operating the Buk system would have been aware of the destructive power of the missile and the consequences of the attack would have been "crystal clear," namely the downing of any aircraft and the death of all of those on board.

The evidence reviewed by the court included including fragments of a Buk missile found embedded in the aircraft and the bodies of some of the victims, along with videos and images showing a Buk system being moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia and then back into Russian territory following the downing of the plane.

Read CNN's full report here.