The king, prime minister and foreign dignitaries joined relatives of the victims of the MH17 tragedy at a memorial service marking the 10th anniversary of the disaster, at Vijfhuizen, near Schiphol on Wednesday afternoon.

Representatives of the governments of Malaysia, Australia, Ukraine, Belgium and the UK were also in attendance at the televised event, during which the names of the 298 victims, 196 of whom were Dutch, were read out loud.

‘We look back on 10 years of loss,’ said Piet Ploeg, chairman of the relatives organisation Stichting Vliegramp MH17, as he welcomed some 1,500 people to the ceremony.

Prime minister Dick Schoof spoke about the power generated by sharing sadness.

“Today we come together in Vijfhuizen, but even on all those other days, when we are separated by great distances, we remain connected, united not only in our grief, but also in our fight for justice,” he said.

“And I know it too: justice takes time. But we have the time. And the patience.
And the perseverance. That is my message to the guilty parties, and my promise to you.”

• Read the prime minister’s speech, in English

Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Buk missile fired by Russian-back militia fighters as it was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

• A timeline of the MH17 disaster

Five countries, led by the Netherlands, set up a Joint Investigation Team which traced the missile to a unit of the Russian army based in Kursk.

Three military commanders from the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic were tried in absentia by a Dutch court and sentenced to life in prison for mass murder. A fourth defendant was acquitted.

None of the men has served a day in prison for the crime, though Igor Girkin, the former leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, has since been jailed in Russian for “inciting extremism” during the subsequent invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow vetoed an attempt to set up a United Nations tribunal and has fuelled various contradictory conspiracy theories suggesting the plane was brought down by a fighter jet or a bomb on board – explanations that were discredited by the JIT and the Dutch Safety Board in 2014.

Responsibility

Sander de Lang, a lawyer who has represented victims’ families since the first weeks after the crash, said Russia’s persistent refusal to accept any responsibility remains a running sore.

“The fact that the Russians are still denying everything is a poke in the eye for the families. They can only shut the book for good once Russia is held to account,” he told Trouw.

Loes van Heijnigen, who lost her brother-in-law Erik, sister-in-law Tina and nephew Zeger, said the 10th anniversary had stirred up deep-seated feelings of loss and grief. “It all comes back: the pain, the sorrow, the wound that opens up again,” she told EenVandaag.

“Zeger was 17 when he was on board the plane. He should have been 27 now. What would have become of him? What would he have chosen to study? You don’t know.”