IT WAS an important demand, if one with little hope of success. On May 29th the Netherlands’ foreign minister, Stef Blok, insisted at the UN Security Council in New York that Russia “accept its responsibility” in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. The airliner was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile over Ukraine in 2014, killing 196 Dutch nationals, 38 Australians and 64 others. Last week a UN-mandated Joint Investigation Team (JIT), led by Dutch prosecutors, announced it had determined that the missile belonged to a unit deployed to the area by the Russian Army’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade, presumably to help Russian-backed secessionists fighting the Ukrainian army.

The Kremlin has always denied any involvement in the downing of MH17 or the war in Ukraine. (Asked about the JIT’s findings, Mr Putin responded, “Which plane are you talking about?”) Instead it has spread conflicting alternative theories blaming the Ukrainians, often backed up with demonstrably fake evidence. But the investigators’ dossier is voluminous. It includes photos and video taken by passers-by that track the convoy carrying the missile from its base near Kursk, in Russia, to the Ukraine border. The JIT also has the fuselage of what appears to be the missile itself, recovered near the crash site. The Netherlands and Australia now say they will hold Russia accountable for its role, and want negotiations on a settlement.

Neither country will say what legal remedies it might pursue if the Kremlin does not co-operate. The International Court of Justice enforces aviation conventions, but Russia could dispute its jurisdiction. A better option might be the European Court of Human Rights, to which Russia is a party. Marieke de Hoon, an international law scholar at Amsterdam’s VU University, says the missile’s crew had a duty to check whether the target was a civilian airliner. But precedent holds that if they made an honest mistake, the government they serve might not be liable, says Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops, an international defence counsel.

Legally, Mr Blok’s appeal at the UN served a purpose: international courts are more likely to accept a case against Russia if the plaintiff can show that all other avenues have been tried. As for criminal charges, the JIT is investigating “several dozen” individuals, and will probably prosecute them in a Dutch court. (Bellingcat, an online investigative outfit, has identified an officer on an intercepted call as a Russian military intelligence commander, Oleg Ivannikov.) And even where the prospects for justice are slim, there is power in establishing the facts. As a group of MH17 victims’ relatives wrote recently, “It will not bring our families back but the truth does matter, the truth does exist.”