MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - Allegations of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) that Russian servicemen were involved in the MH17 crash are 'hollow,' the Russian Foreign Ministry promising to offer assistance to investigators to establish the truth about the tragedy.
"Statements voiced by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) at the press conference on June 19 alleging the involvement of Russian servicemen into the MH17 crash can arouse nothing by regret. Absolutely hollow accusations aimed at discrediting Russia in the eyes of the international community were once again put forward," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its website on Wednesday.
"Just as was the case of the previous JIT press conferences, no hard evidence to substantiate such illegitimate statements was provided," it said.
"Apparently, JIT has continued to limit itself to not quite comprehensible arguments that are based in particular on doubtful sources of information. At the same time, data that the Russian side gives to the investigation is still being ignored," it said.
Moscow also rejects allegations that it does not want to fully cooperate with JIT, it said. "We resolutely reject such allegations. Since the first day of the tragedy Russia has been very much interested in establishing the truth and ready to officer comprehensive assistance to the investigation. Russia has actively cooperated with the Netherlands and provided all information it had on the MH17 crash. As part of this work, Russian agencies did a colossal amount of unpresented work ranging from declassifying data on Russian military hardware and conducting a complicated experiment by the Almaz-Antey company to passing primary radar data and documents proving the Ukrainian origins of the missile that hit MH17, as well as highly accurate examinations proving that videos on which JIT bases its conclusions are falsified," the ministry said.
Russia "has initially been proposing to work together," it said. "But international investigators barred Moscow from full-fledged participation in JIT giving secondary role to Russia. However, they made Ukraine a full-fledged JIT member giving it's the right to falsify evidence and to reduce to zero its responsibility for not closing its airspace," it said.
"In these conditions we continue to have right questions about the quality of JIT work," it said. "All this proves earlier voiced fears that this process is biased and one-sided," it said.
"However, Russia is going to continue offering assistance to the investigation in order to establish the truth about the MH17 crash and to bring the real culprits to justice," the statement said.
On Wednesday, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) named four suspects behind the MH17 tragedy. They are Russian citizens Igor Girkin (Strelkov), Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko.
Flight MH17 of Malaysian Airlines en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed in the skies of Donbas on July 17, 2014. All 298 people aboard were killed in the tragedy.