Russia not responsible for MH17 crash: Kremlin

Russia is not responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine one year ago, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

It is "utterly absurd" to claim that Russia's veto on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) draft resolution about setting up an international tribunal for the MH17 crash means Moscow effectively admitted its guilt, Peskov told reporters.

Russia repeatedly addressed its questions to the investigators of the plane crash and expressed regret that it could not participate in the investigation of the tragedy, he said, noting that Moscow will continue to do everything possible to find out the truth.

The Ukrainian government said minutes after Wednesday's UNSC vote that "results of the vote on the MH17 tribunal speak for themselves," vowing to push for justice and punish the guilty.

Peskov said Moscow has consistently advocated an objective, substantive and specific investigation into the crash to find out who was the culprit.

Russia categorically opposes the politicization of the crash investigation, the country's Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying. "The investigation should not be used as a prerequisite for some kind of political judicatory," he said.

A few hours before the UNSC vote, Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone rejected a last-minute appeal from Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to support the creation of an international tribunal.

Two weeks ago when Rutte called Putin over the same issue, the latter had expressed opposition, saying that calls for such a tribunal are counterproductive.

On Wednesday, the UNSC failed to adopt the resolution on a MH17 international tribunal with Russia voting against it, 11 of the Council's 15 members voting in favor and three others, including China, abstaining.

China's permanent representative to the UN Liu Jieyi said Wednesday after the vote that China calls on all sides to focus on establishing the truth of the MH17 incident and to seek justice for the victims.

Peskov said that the Kremlin "always respects the stance taken by Chinese colleagues."

A Malaysia Airlines plane was brought down on July 17, 2014 when it was flying over the war zone in east Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, killing all 298 people on board, 196 of whom were Dutch citizens.

Ukraine kept accusing pro-independence insurgents in eastern Ukraine of shooting down the aircraft, as well as Russia of supplying weapons to the separatists. Endi