Russia’s Empty Gesture on the Downed Malaysian Jet

A year after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard, Russia has asked the United Nations Security Council and the International Civil Aviation Organization to take a more active role in investigating the incident and bringing those responsible to justice.

On the face of it, that looks like an accommodating gesture from the government that is backing the Ukrainian separatists believed to have fired the fatal missile on July 17, 2014, and that probably supplied it to them. It’s not.

The real goal of the draft resolution Russia proposed on Monday at the Security Council is to thwart a Dutch-led criminal investigation of what happened and a Western call for a United Nations-backed tribunal.

The Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine are expected to allege that the plane was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists or Russian soldiers, and they have asked the Security Council to set up a tribunal to prosecute those responsible.

From the outset, Russia has denied any role in the incident, concocting various alternative accounts that put the blame on Ukraine and the West. 

By pushing for a greater role for the United Nations in the investigation, Russia hopes to be better positioned to interfere with the inquiry. As for the tribunal, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, has described it as an attempt to set up a “grandiose, political show.”

The diversionary tactic is typical for the way Russia has behaved in Ukraine from the time Russian soldiers without insignia appeared in Crimea, before Moscow’s annexation of the territory in March 2014, to the bloody and inconclusive fighting that continues to this day in separatist-held regions of eastern Ukraine. Throughout it all, President Vladimir Putin has baldly denied the obvious fact that Russian forces are fully engaged in the fighting inside Ukraine. He has blamed Ukrainian “fascists” manipulated by the United States and its allies for all the troubles in Ukraine.

Nobody outside Russia believes this, and the Russians themselves make little effort to conceal their extensive military support for the separatists.The bloodshed continues, giving Ukraine no chance to start rebuilding its economy or reform its corruption-riddled government. That may be just what Mr. Putin wants — to ensure that Ukraine remains a broken mess.

The relatives of the people who died on the Malaysian airliner, most of whom were Dutch, deserve answers and justice. There is little question that Russia will block any tribunal. But the Security Council should not be fooled into believing that the Russian counterproposals are an honorable alternative, any more than anyone should be fooled by any of Mr. Putin’s lies about Russia’s military interference in Ukraine.

Russia played an important and respected role, along with the United States and other major powers, in reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran. At the same time, Mr. Putin seems content to draw the world’s sanctions and disdain with his destructive actions in Ukraine.

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