On July 17, 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 was flying over Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine, when it was shot down by Russian-backed terrorists with a Russian-made and Russian-supplied Buk missile system. All 298 people on board the flight were killed.

The Ukrainian Canadian community expresses its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this terrible crime, including the family of Canadian Andrei Anghel. We join them in grief and solemn remembrance. May the Memory of the Victims Be Eternal.

The leadership of the Russian Federation bears direct responsibility for this horrible act of international terrorism. In an attempt to hide its responsibility, the Russian Federation used its veto at the United Nations Security Council to block the establishment of an International Tribunal to investigate the MH-17 terrorist act.

Recently, Bellingcat released its latest report, MH17 – The Open Source Investigation, Two Years Later, bringing together two years of research by Bellingcat into the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. The on-going Russia-led war in eastern Ukraine, which has resulted in the deaths over over 9,000 people and 1.5M internally displaced people, is well documented in many publications such as Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) calls on the international community to ensure that the perpetrators of this heinous crime are brought to justice. The UCC calls on Canada and her allies to declare the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “Peoples’ Republics” terrorist organizations and designate the Russian Federation a state sponsor of terrorism.