THE NORTHERN ECHO recently spoke to the father of the man who died on the MH17  flight, which was shot down by pro-Russian separatists in 2014, on the Russian-Ukraine crisis, before the Russian invasion today.

Barry Sweeney, from Longbenton in Newcastle, said that Putin was “flexing his muscles” and the Russian president “won’t listen to anybody.”

Mr Sweeney’s son, Liam Sweeney, 28, was one of the 283 passengers on the Malaysia Airlines flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, that was shot down on July 17, 2014, while flying over Eastern Ukraine.

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Mr Sweeney had repeatedly voiced his concerns prior to the invasion that president Putin would not be “bullied” by the west and that he had “already decided” on his invasion plan into Ukraine.

He said: “I think he’s already decided, but I know they’re on about sanctions again, but is he going to listen, hopefully, he will, I know he’s flexing his muscles at the moment.

The Northern Echo:

He added that he felt the sanctions imposed by the UK and other countries prior to the invasion, won’t do much to help the situation.

Mr Sweeney said: “The sanctions imposed by the UK probably aren’t going to help, but the stupid thing is, it’s not really the Russian people.

“When you put sanctions in you’re sort of having a go against the wrong people, the Russian people are probably as nice as us.”

The week before, Mr Sweeney had spoke about his attempt to convers with the Russian president through a message on Facebook, that he says was quickly taken down.

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He asked Mr Putin how he would feel losing his daughter in the same way, adding: “that’s something I wouldn’t want to happen”.

He said: “I did send Putin a message via Facebook but it did get taken down, but basically, I’ve lost my son to a war.

“I said that as Putin has a daughter, how would he feel if he lost his daughter in the same way. That’s something I wouldn’t want to happen, that comes from the heart that.

“A war now is just too big for just hand to hand because the way missiles are now, it’s just pointless, but that’s easy for me to say.”

The Northern Echo:

When asked if the escalated tensions could result in a similar incident as MH17, Mr Sweeney said he “would like to think not.”

Mr Sweeney added: “I think that because of what happened with MH17, it did stop what was going to happen back then, and Covid was another situation that delayed things.

“But I think Putin is going to do what he wants to do and he doesn’t really care what the rest of us think.

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“There’s a lot of dictators knocking about at the moment, in our country we do have diplomacy and democracy.

“People can choose what they want, but unfortunately in these other countries they can’t and they’re told what to do."

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