Loading At least three people who actively fought in the Russian-backed conflict on the ground below - codenamed M58, S07 and S21 - have spoken to investigators, along with dozens of other people who Dutch prosecutors fear could also be targeted. Prosecutor Thijs Berger told the court in the second day of a landmark trial in Amsterdam that witnesses had good reason to fear for their lives because the Russian government had a history of ordering the murder or attempted murder of people in Russia, Britain, Germany, Turkey and Bulgaria. He said Russia had deployed a combination of intimidation on the ground and a massive disinformation campaign online to disrupt and discredit efforts to find out who shot down MH17 in July 2014. "Seen as a whole, this information casts a dark shadow over these proceedings," Berger told the court.

"There are strong indications that the Russian government is very keen to thwart this investigation, and that it is not averse to deploying the Russian security services to do so. Those same services are accused of multiple murders that have been committed in various European countries. "A number of witnesses in this investigation have said that they fear for their lives if their identities were to come to light. The use of Russian security services to discover the identity of witnesses in this investigation is a real scenario." Oleg Pulatov is the only one of four accused men to have engaged legal representation in the proceedings. Prosecutors will tender several phone conversations - intercepted in the same month MH17 was shot down - in which pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine discuss getting "the green light from Moscow to execute somebody" and an "order from Moscow to shoot someone". The court heard that someone who filmed the Buk-TELAR launcher being smuggled into Ukraine was later visited twice by armed people and "had subsequently fled".

One of the men accused of procuring and deploying the deadly Buk missile launcher, Oleg Pulatov, has lodged an appeal against a preliminary decision to suppress the identity of at-risk witnesses. Pulatov, 53, is a former military officer of the Russian Spetznaz-GRU, a special unit of the Russian military intelligence service. He is the only one of four accused men to have engaged lawyers. The deadly 2014 disaster triggered a joint international investigation that has included more than 500 Australian Federal Police officers. Prosecutors claimed Russia's military intelligence unit, the GRU, may have hacked the governments of Australia, the Netherlands, Malaysia or Belgium to extract and then distribute misleading information about the joint investigation. The potential hack involved an AFP forensic analysis of images of the Buk missile launcher being transported in eastern Ukraine.

AFP detective superintendent David Nelson said: "I don’t wish to comment too much other than to say it [Russia's disinformation campaign] is not helpful for the next of kin. I don’t think it assists their grieving and ability to follow the trial and know what the facts are." The prosecutors said there were indications that the GRU had attempted to hack the Malaysian police and attorney-general's office in a bid to steal information about MH17. Australia has long accused Russia of sharing responsibility in the MH17 disaster but Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement. Investigators concluded in 2018 that the Boeing 777-200 was shot down by a Russian-made missile launched from a Russian-owned launcher that had been smuggled into Ukraine from Russia and sent back over the border after MH17 was brought down. In court on Tuesday, prosecutors said witness M58 - the most at-risk of all protected witnesses - was a Russian volunteer in the battle to seize control over eastern Ukraine and was "in the vicinity of a Buk TELAR at the moment a missile was launched".

Loading "M58 states that those present were initially pleased because they were told that a military transport plane had been shot down," said prosecutor Dedy Woe-A-Tsoi. "However, when the first people returned from the crash site they said that it was a civilian aircraft." Crucially, M58 later told investigators that some Russian military personnel, who fighters said belonged to Russia's security service - were with the Buk launcher at the launch site. This is believed to be the first public claim that serving Russian security officials were at the scene of the deadly strike. Australian Bryan Clancy, who lost his brother Michael and sister-in-law Carol on MH17, said families were stunned by new court claims about Russia's involvement. "They're murderers and they're trying to cover their tracks," he said outside the court.