Investigators blame Russian military unit

A missile system from the 53rd anti-aircraft brigade of the Russian Armed Forces was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, prosecutors investigating the disaster said yesterday.

The airliner was hit by a Russian-made missile on July 17, 2014, with 298 people on board, two-thirds of them Dutch, over territory held by pro-Russian separatists. All aboard died.

"The buk (missile system) that was used came from the Russian army, the 53rd brigade," Chief Dutch Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke told Reuters. "We know that was used, but the people in charge of this buk, we don't know."

Investigators appealed to the public to come forward and help identify members of the crew who operated the missile and determine how high up the chain of command the order originated.

"The Russian Federation didn't help us in providing us the information we brought out into the open today," Westerbeke said. "They didn't give us this information, although a buk (missile system) from their military forces was used."

Russia has denied involvement in the incident. Russia's defence ministry said yesterday it had nothing to do with the downing of a plane over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

In an interim update on their investigation, prosecutors said they had trimmed their list of possible suspects from more than a hundred to several dozen.

He said investigators were not yet ready to identify individual suspects publicly or to issue indictments, but that when they do he expects cooperation, or a firm international political response.