Tony Abbott Says He Should Have Done More Than ‘Shirtfront’ Putin Following MH17 Tragedy

Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott (L) prepares to shake hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin during the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia, on Nov. 15, 2014. WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty Images

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott believes he should have done more than threaten to “shirtfront,” or frontal charge, Russian President Vladimir Putin following the downing of MH17.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was allegedly shot down by a Russian BUK missile system on July 17, 2014, while it was travelling over eastern Ukraine.

All 298 passengers and crew on the flight, which had been travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, were killed.

On the 10th anniversary, Mr. Abbott said the incident was more than a tragedy—it was an atrocity.

“This was a Russian missile battery which came into Ukraine, fired at an aircraft without much thought as to what it really was, and brought down a civilian airliner with 298 innocent people onboard, including 38 Australians,” Mr. Abbott told the ABC. 

“Yes, it was a tragedy, but it was an atrocity too, and to this day, I feel very angry at the Russian leadership which permitted this.”

Mr. Abbott said he believes to this day that Mr. Putin owes the families of the dead an apology and compensation.

“Because plainly, this aircraft was brought down in the pursuit of Russia’s geopolitical objects in Ukraine, and these were the Australian victims of Putin’s war against the independence of Ukraine,” Mr. Abbott said.

Abbott Recalls Confrontation With Putin

The former prime minister recalled his confrontation with Mr. Putin back in 2014, when he directly called on him to take some responsibility for this and owed it to the families.

“Now, to this day, he’s monumentally failed to do so, but as far as the Russian dictator is concerned, all is fair in his pursuit of Russian aggrandizement,” Mr. Abbott said.

He said the “relatively weak” reaction of the West to Mr. Putin’s first aggressive action against Ukraine inevitably allowed the situation to escalate into the war we see today.

“The problem with tolerating aggression is you get more of it,” he said.

Mr. Abbott reflected on his confrontation with Mr. Putin at the APEC leaders summit in Beijing in November 2014.

To the former prime minister, there was “no doubt what he was up to” after Mr. Putin grabbed him and said in English, “You are not a native Australian, but I am a native Russian.”

This was in response to Mr. Abbott telling Mr. Putin that he believed Ukrainians had the right to be free.

“I just think it’s a pity more wasn’t done to arm up the Ukrainians in the meantime,” Mr. Abbott said.

Mr. Abbott has no regrets about saying he wanted to shirtfront Mr. Putin at the time, but he’s rather been vindicated by history.

“I frankly should have done more than shirtfront him because that was probably the only way to stop him, to be much more forceful than anyone was back then,” he said.

Mr. Abbott said Russian missile batteries do not wander into neighbouring countries by accident.

“This sort of thing only happens if it has been authorised from the very top,” Mr. Abbott said.

He pointed to the intercepted radio traffic coming out of Ukraine on July 17 which indicated that Russian-backed rebels thought initially they'd shot down Ukrainian transport.

“And then it dawned on them that they hadn’t actually shot down a military aircraft. They had shot down a civilian airliner,” Mr. Abbott continued.

“It was clear something happened, that Russia was involved,  and certainly later that day, we summoned the Russian ambassador up to Parliament House for a formal dressing down by the foreign minister.”

Russia Dismissed Investigation On their Involvement

International prosecutors who investigated the downing of MH17 found “strong indications” that Mr. Putin approved the use of Russian BUK missile systems that were used to shoot down the plane.

Despite intercepting phone calls, the investigators said the evidence of Mr. Putin’s involvement was not strong enough to pursue a criminal conviction.

The Kremlin dismissed the investigation, claiming it “could not accept” the results, given that it was not involved in the investigation and there was no basis.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in 2023, “We know that a recording of a supposed phone call was published ... in which not a single word is said about weapons. Even assuming that this conversation is real ... there is not one word about weapons. Nobody has published anything else, so it’s impossible to say anything.”

“Russia did not take part in this investigation, so we cannot accept these results—especially since no basis for these statements has been made public,” he added.

The victims of the flight came from 13 countries and included an AIDS researcher from Amsterdam, a nun and teacher from Sydney, a Dutch senator, and a World Health Organisation spokesman.