Media: Russia and Ukraine both spied on MH17 investigators
The Russian and Ukrainian intelligence agencies both monitored members of the mission from the Netherlands which came to investigate the MH17 catastrophe in Ukraine, the Dutch news program RTL Nieuws reported.
“It’s important that this came out into the open. The Netherlands must say to Ukraine: this should not happen. We are on the same side, and we should not be operating with a secret agenda,” said Bram van Ojik, Dutch MP from the GroenLinks opposition party.
According to information gathered by the journalists, the diplomats, soldiers and investigators from the mission were wiretapped through the installation of spyware on their electronic devices. However, the spying carried out by Russia was far more structured and extensive than that carried out by Ukraine.
All of the Dutch staff were instructed on electronic protection. They were advised not to use public Wi-Fi access points. However, their electronic devices activated themselves and even tried to connect to the internet on their own.
The Dutch representatives were forced to have all of their confidential conversations exclusively in their embassy, or in rooms especially equipped for negotiations. All other means of communication were considered risky.
Mission members also found eavesdropping devices in their hotel rooms. The Dutch government was apparently aware of possible eavesdropping, because the investigators had been warned about it.
On May 24, in light of the investigation results, the Netherlands officially announced that the Boeing flying route MH17 over the Donbas in 2014 was shot down by the Russian military.