Prosecutors investigating the downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 said on Thursday they had identified the missile used to shoot down the plane as coming from Russia's armed forces.
Wilbert Paulissen, head of the crime squad of the Netherlands' national police, said the missile was fired from Russia's 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, Reuters reported.
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"All the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces," he told a televised news conference.
Russia has denied involvement in the incident.
UNIAN memo. All 298 people on board flight MH17 were killed when it was struck by a missile on July 17, 2014, and crashed into fields in the part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia's proxy forces. Two-thirds of the passengers on the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were Dutch.
The Joint Investigation Team's preliminary report concluded that the plane was shot down by a BUK missile "controlled by pro-Russian fighters". It was also established that the Buk launcher had been brought from Russia and then hastily taken back.
The JIT conclusions have been disputed by Russia claiming that it was the Ukrainian forces who were responsible for the plane's downing.
