International investigators have concluded that Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired from rebel-held eastern Ukraine, a Dutch daily said on Tuesday.
But the Russian maker of the weapon says it conducted two experiments — in one of which a BUK missile was detonated near the nose of an airplane similar to a 777 — that contradicts the Dutch findings.
Quoting three sources close to the investigation, the Volkskrant daily said the inquiry had found the plane was hit by a BUK surface-to-air missile on July 17, 2014, killing killing all 298 people on board, as it was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala lumpur.
The report contains maps of the crash site, where the wreckage was strewn across fields close to the Ukrainian village of Grabove, in the war-torn area of Donetsk controlled by the pro-Russian separatists.
It rejects Moscow’s contention that the plane was hit by amissile fired by Ukrainian troops as it flew at some 33,000 feet above the territory, Volkskrant said.