Relatives of those killed when MH17 was shot down mark 10 years since tragedy that claimed 298 lives

MEBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Relatives of passengers killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine gathered with officials at Australia’s Parliament House on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the tragedy that claimed 298 lives.

One of those relatives, Paul Guard, mostly blames the conflict raging in eastern Ukraine a decade ago for the missile attack that killed 38 Australian citizens and permanent residents including his parents, Toowoomba doctors Roger and Jill Guard.

“I don’t think anyone intended to bring down a passenger plane. So in that sense, I’m heartbroken that the conflict continues,” Paul Guard told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“But I think that a lot of families would really have just liked an acknowledgement that what happened was wrong and that Russia should not have been waging war,” the son added.

The conflict has since escalated into a full-scale war with Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor in February 2022.

The pro-Russia rebel-held border region from where a Soviet-era Buk surface-to-air missile was fatefully launched and the fields where much of the debris landed after the Boeing 777 disintegrated is now territory controlled by the Russian military.

Moscow has repeatedly denied responsibility for MH17’s destruction and refused to hand over two Russians and a Ukrainian convicted by a Dutch court in absentia in 2022 of murder.

Russia continues to be pursued under international law by the Netherlands through in the European Court of Human Rights and by Australia and the Netherlands jointly through the International Civil Aviation Organization Council, or ICAO, over its alleged role in bringing down MH17.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told Wednesday’s service she was