The number of those who joined the lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin personally in connection with the crash of flight MH17 has increased to 291, lawyer Jerry Skinner told the Echo of Moscow radio station, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the relatives of the victims aboard the Malaysian airliner shot down over Donbas in July 2014.

"We started work with a small number of citizens of Malaysia and Australia, with whom I established contact from the very beginning. Now we have been joined by a large number of relatives of the victims, and our lawsuit has become the largest. We would be glad if the remaining relatives would join us. They can contact me and I will explain what needs to be done, as this work does not yet cover everything. There are fewer than 16 people left. Together we have 291 people in the lawsuit," he said.

Skinner said he intends he intends to seek $10 million for each dead person aboard the airliner. Some 298 people died in the crash, mostly Dutch citizens.

The total amount of payments on the claim to Russia may be about $3 billion, the lawyer said.

As earlier reported, Boeing-777 of Malaysia Airlines, carrying out the flight MH17 Amsterdam (the Netherlands) - Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), was shot down in the sky over Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers on board died.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which includes prosecutors and representatives of other law enforcement agencies in Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia, as well as representatives of Eurojust, presented the results of a criminal investigation into the causes of the disaster in the Netherlands on September 28, 2016.

According to the findings, the airliner was shot down by a 9M38 missile launched from the BUK-TELAR self-propelled gun from an agricultural field in the area of Pervomaisk. At that time, the region was under the control of Russian occupation forces. It also follows from the investigation that the self-propelled fire unit BUK-TELAR was delivered to Ukraine from Russia and after its use for an attack on the airliner of the MH17 flight was again returned to Russia.