To the families of the 298 passengers who died over Ukraine on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over a year ago, a long-awaited Dutch investigation into the cause of the crash must be satisfying and frustrating in equal measure. The report confirms that the plane was shot down by a Russian-built surface-to-air missile, as long suspected, but not by whom or from exactly where.

Still, the report is far more reliable than the report the Russians released on the same day. Their inquiry, by the missile system’s manufacturer, claims that a different model of the warhead, no longer in Russian arsenals, shot down the plane, and that it was fired from an area under Ukrainian control.

Those claims are not to be believed, and shouldn’t be. Russia has already offered several versions of this story, including one (since discredited) in which a Ukrainian jet shot down the plane with an air-to-air missile. The Dutch Safety Board’s tests, including analyses of metal and paint samples from missile fragments, conclusively debunk Russia’s claims about the missile. (A separate Dutch investigation is looking into who fired the missile.)

The meticulous nature of the Dutch inquiries, into both what happened and who’s responsible, inspires confidence in the findings. This is the value of due process. Russia’s “investigation” is an attempt to undermine that confidence, and should be seen for what it is.

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