A Dutch Court Sentenced Kremlin-Backed Russian Separatists for Downing a Civilian Airliner

A court in the Netherlands last week sentenced to life imprisonment two Russians and a Russo-Ukrainian separatist for using a missile supplied by the Russian Federation to shoot down a Malaysian Air civilian airline jet that had taken off from Amsterdam over Ukraine in 2014, killing hundreds of innocent people during the early phase of Russian aggression against the former Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The Russian Federation, led by ex-Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, is trying to restore the Soviet Union, which broke up in 1991. Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine, seizing Crimea and covertly backing separatists in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, before conducting a full-scale invasion this year to seize the rest of Ukraine, in violation of its agreement to recognize Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia has committed many war crimes during the Russo-Ukrainian War.