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Russian air defense systems manufacturer Almaz-Antey Tuesday denied its involvement in the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine last July, saying Western sanctions against the company are unjustified.
Based on the wreckage and missile fragments found at the crash site, all the evidence pointed to the conclusion that the flight was downed by a guided air defense missile, probably a 9M38M1 missile (of the BUK-M1 air defense missile system) which "has not been produced in Russia since 1999," Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the general designer of Almaz-Antey, told a press conference over the company's investigation of the crash.
"The missile exploded three to four meters from the plane, closer to the left side of the cockpit," he said. "If necessary, we can conduct a field test with the same missile and plane model at a specified angle, as well as with the participation of independent experts."
The advisor added there is evidence that the BUK-M1 system and accompanying missiles were still in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2005, and the missile that damaged the aircraft was possibly being fired from an area south of the Zaroshchenskoye village in southeastern Ukraine.
According to the RIA Novosti news agency, a spokesman of the Ukrainian General Staff responded by denying that the area where the missile was presumably fired was under the control of Kiev-led forces on the day when the accident took place.
Meanwhile, Almaz-Antey criticized the European Union (EU) for imposing unjustified sanctions against it, saying they are "unfair and damaging for the company."
"We have filed a lawsuit to the General Court of the EU with a request to provide detailed grounds on which the sanctions were imposed," Almaz-Antey CEO Yan Novikov said.
The Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in the conflict-torn Donbass region on July 17 on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board.
The West has been claiming that pro-independence insurgents in eastern Ukraine shot down the aircraft and has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Russia and Russian enterprises, which has brought Moscow's relations with the West to the lowest point since the end of the Cold War. Enditem
