The European Court of Justice has upheld an EU ruling to place sanctions on Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey.
The company, which was sanctioned after Russia's annexation of Crimea in July 2014, Almaz-Antey appealed to the court in 2015.
Judges ruled that as the company produced anti-aircraft missiles for the Russian army, it "undermined or threatened the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine." The Luxembourg-based court said that weapons produced by Almaz-Antey could be used in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and ruled that the company's European assets had been frozen lawfully between March 2015 to September 2016.
According to official investigations, Malaysian airliner MH17, a Boeing 777 carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down by Russian-backed separatists operating an Almaz-Antey-manufactured Buk surface-to-air missile system in July 2014.
