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Buk-Missile Manufacturer Almaz-Antey Wants EU to Compensate MH17 Experiment

Journalists attend a news conference, organized by officials of Russian missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey and dedicated to the results of its investigation into Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine, in Moscow, Russia, Oct. 13, 2015.

Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey wants the European Union to foot the bill for an experiment it conducted into the causes of the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine last year, Izvestia newspaper reported Friday.

Russia's biggest defense contractor — and producer of the Buk missile — will seek compensation of an additional 10 million rubles ($163,000) at the European Union's Court of Justice in Luxembourg, Almaz-Antey's CEO Yan Novikov was cited as saying by Izvestia.

“As a result of international sanctions, Almaz-Antey has incurred financial losses and its business reputation has been put in doubt. We considered this enough reason to conduct a field experiment to confirm the calculations made by our experts, to prove the company's innocence in the [MH17] tragedy in Ukraine,” Novikov told Izvestia.

[See here for further information regarding the Dutch Safety Report and Almaz-Antey's experiments]

Almaz-Antey in May filed an appeal at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg contesting the sanctions imposed on it over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis and the annexation of Crimea.

Under the sanctions, the state-owned missile manufacturer has had its European assets frozen and is banned from exporting weapons or dual-use products to European Union members and companies.

The Izvestia report did not specify the total amount being claimed in damages, but said it went into the millions of dollars.

Hours ahead of a press conference by the Dutch Safety Board on Tuesday — in which it presented its final conclusions on the causes of the downing of MH17 — Almaz-Antey held a rival press conference in Moscow in which it presented the results of its two field experiments.

Conceding that the downing of the plane had been caused by a Buk missile, as also argued in the Dutch report, Almaz-Antey said the type of warhead involved was an older model that Russia claims are no longer in use by its armed forces.


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