Russia releases MH17 plane crash suspect back to DPR
Maria Levchenko-Tsemakh, daughter of Vladimir Tsemakh, a suspect in the MH17 case, has published a photo of herself with her father, stating that they are returning to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
“Well, there is happiness in life, there is justice, there are good people! It’s a bit easier to live now. Hooray, my dears! We’re going home!” the militant’s daughter wrote in a post on the Russian social network VKontakte.
Previously Maria Tsemakh had posted a photograph of a bus traveling along the Donetsk-Moscow route. She said that she had taken the bus to Moscow.
Journalist Christopher Miller believes that Russia deliberately let Tsemakh go in order to avoid claims from the Netherlands.
“Of course, it means that, when the Dutch government once again asks Russia to hand over Tsemakh, they can simply say: ‘We don’t have him, he’s in Ukraine.’ This also means that if a ‘tragedy’ befalls Tsemakh – à la Zakharchenko etc. – Russia can say: ‘It happened in Ukraine’,” the journalist wrote on Twitter.
DPR militant Vladimir Tsemakh was recently flown to Russia alongside other prisoners of Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange.
Tsemakh is considered a primary witness in the case concerning the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. He was arrested by Ukrainian intelligence operatives in his apartment in the occupied city of Snizhne (Donetsk province), where his daughter apparently lives too.