If Ukraine had turned off their radars, this should have been reported to Eurocontrol, the organisation responsible for the air safety of forty European countries. But no such report was received by Eurocontrol. Later on, Ukraine’s failure to produce radar images became even more confusing when its former minister of transport, Vladimir Shulmeister, visited the Netherlands and, during a press conference, said he had been very surprised when he read the DSB report; he claimed that the Dutch had never asked Ukraine to share their radar images. Shulmeister had served on the board of the Ukrainian committee that handled all matters concerning the MH17; he said he would have known if the Dutch had asked Ukraine for their radar data. Ukraine, as a member of the Joint Investigation Team, was actively participating in the investigation to identify the murderers, so it would have been hard for the Dutch to put any political pressure on them. But it was an astonishing level of miscommunication between these two members.
United States secretary of state John Kerry had indicated just three days after the crash that the US government possessed data that pinpointed the exact location of the suspected missile launch that downed the airliner. But in its October report, the Dutch Safety Board placed the likely firing location within a 320-square-kilometre area that covered territory under both government and rebel control. Apparently, the Dutch at that time had not yet received the US imagery, or else their location details would have been much more precise.
In a statement, the Dutch diplomatically blamed technicalities in US laws for the lack of American cooperation. The Dutch government in an official letter to the parliament advised that, under the American legal system, it is juridically complicated to pass intelligence information on to the criminal justice system; furthermore, if it made the satellite imagery public, the USA would reveal important military information, such as where their satellites were positioned and the quality of their imagery.
Weeks later, the Dutch minister of justice, Ard van der Steur, claimed that the Americans had in fact shared their imagery with the Netherlands. This was an important statement because John Kerry had at an earlier stage claimed that: ‘We saw the launch, we saw the impact and we saw the plane disappear from our radar. So it’s no mystery where it came from and where these weapons came from.’ Clearly, the imagery shared with the Netherlands could be of vital importance in arresting the suspects and charging them before a court.
Fred Westerbeke, the Dutch prosecutor and coordinator of the Joint Investigation Team, said that all requested data had been handed over by the US to the Dutch Military Secret Service, but that there was a public misunderstanding about the imagery. ‘There is no footage showing a rocket being launched. The intelligence services don’t have footage that answers every question.’ This was in stark contrast to what Kerry had claimed.
As 2015 had worn on and conflicting reports concerning the US satellite images had surfaced, it became very doubtful as to whether the Americans had actually shared their satellite information with anyone. Ukraine certainly had not, and the Russians had only shared their video footage of the radar. Still, in March 2016 the Dutch minister of justice, van der Steur, claimed there was no further need for any radar imagery. There was enough to satisfy those working on the case. Nonetheless, two family members of victims, Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand and Thomas Schansman, together with sixteen others, wrote a letter to Rutte asking for the satellite images to be released and asking him to explain why it was taking so unbearably long to sort it all out.
People were afraid that the truth was being swept under the carpet for some reason and were getting the impression that the government and the investigators were deliberately creating a cover-up. Thomas Schansman, because of his son Quinn’s dual nationality, also wrote to John Kerry asking him about possible radar or satellite data. In his answer Kerry replied: ‘We continue to work together with the Joint Investigation Team to find the cause of the attack and identify those responsible.’ But Kerry did not specifically mention radar or satellite images in his reply.
Questions arose in the Dutch parliament concerning the issue of raw radar data and satellite imagery that the United States claimed to have in its possession and which the US described as strong evidence. But in Washington officials failed to clarify to what extent the US intelligence had shared their data: ‘I believe we have collaborated with the Dutch in their investigation,’ State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said. ‘I just don’t know to what level we shared information with them, I’d have to look into that.’
Nonetheless, the DSB claimed that the missing images were not vital to the investigation and that it would be very unlikely for the images to show a rocket, which was also in stark contradiction to what US secretary Kerry had claimed. The DSB wrote that if they had had such images, it would have done nothing to change their conclusion that a Buk rocket made in Russia had been responsible for taking down the plane.
In a letter to the relatives, the Dutch prosecutor explained the status of the investigation. The letter stated the following on satellite data: ‘To date the JIT has no satellite images of the launch of the missile. Because of clouds usable images are not available from the firing location at the time of day when the MH17 was shot down.’ Maintenance requirements, legal issues, fuzzy video footage and now even the clouds had been brought into the equation.
Twenty months after the downing of Flight MH17, the White House announced a new package of US$335 million in security assistance for Ukraine, but yet the public still did not know what had happened and who was responsible for the deaths of 298 innocent people.
On 6 April 2016 a plebiscite was held in the Netherlands on a proposed EU–Ukraine Association Agreement. Dutch voters rejected this proposal by a margin of 61.1 per cent to 38.1 per cent and turnout for the vote was 32.2 per cent, higher than the 30 per cent that was required for the result to be considered valid. The vote was non-binding, but it would have been difficult for the Dutch government to directly contravene the expressed will of the voters and approve the agreement. Mark Rutte stated that his government, which had supported the agreement, might have to reconsider because ‘with such a victory for the “No” camp, ratification cannot go ahead without discussion’.
Doubt and suspicions about Ukraine’s role in the MH17 disaster underpinned the ‘No’ campaign’s efforts to convince the Dutch that an already ratified, 1200-page treaty with Ukraine was a bad idea. While the European Commission formally issued its support for a visa-free travel arrangement for Ukrainian citizens, this did not guarantee that the proposal would be adopted. All of the EU’s member states and the bloc’s parliament would have to vote.
By the end of April, the casualty count of the ongoing war in Ukraine was estimated by the UN to be almost 9500 and the injured totalled 21,000. In April 2016 the level of violence rose dramatically and could be compared to that of August 2014. All through the Easter ceasefire deaths were reported due to hostilities. A new report by the United Nations found both sides of the conflict were responsible for multiple human rights abuses, including carrying out summary executions of combatants and civilians, as well as indiscriminately shelling civilian areas.