On 17 July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 (flight number MH17) was downed in eastern Ukraine. The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 298 people on board. All passengers were killed, 193 of whom were Dutch citizens. None of the parties to the conflict claimed responsibility for this incident but an international investigation determined that the plane had been hit by a Buk surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile. It was also established that the missile had been fired from an area occupied by the separatists.

There is also no doubt that the missile system had come there from Russian territory and was returned to Russia after the Boeing had been shot down. The Russian media immediately shifted blame to Ukraine for the tragedy - for failure to close the airspace above the battlefield, and Ukraine blamed Russia for having provided the Buk system. World public opinion blamed Russia for the incident, which directly triggered another wave of sanctions on Russia.

In August 2014, the conflict in eastern Ukraine escalated. On 6-31 August, the battle of Ilovaisk was fought, which was called the Ilovaisk Cauldron. Ukrainian forces (supported by volunteer battalions) were to capture the city of Ilovaisk and regain control in the region. After Ukraine’s initial successes, Russian armed forces joined the fight on the side of the separatists and quickly gained the upper hand. The Ukrainians were surrounded (closed in a “cauldron”), attacked and defeated while retreating. As a result of the fighting in the Ilovaisk Cauldron, the retreating Ukrainian army also lost control over Mariupol. This led to pro-Russian separatists taking over large swaths of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and, consequently, to the signing of the Minsk agreements.

Photo: Ukrainian soldiers enter the village near Ilovaisk, August 2014. Photo by UTR News - PULS NEWS AND PRESS-REVIEW IN ENGLISH, 1 September 2014, CC BY 3.0.