US Affirms Belief MH17 Shot Down From Area Controlled by Donbass Militias

The United States Department of State reiterated its belief that Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight was shot down from the territory controlled by "Russian-backed separatists," it said in a statement marking the second anniversary of the plane shootdown on Saturday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed with 298 people on board on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine, while en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, leaving no survivors. Kiev and independence supporters in Ukraine’s southeast have blamed each other for the downing of the MH17 plane.

"In October 2015, we welcomed the findings of the Dutch Safety Board in its final report on the cause of the MH 17 crash. This report validated that MH 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. Our own assessment has not changed – the missile was fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine," the statement read.

Dutch investigators published a report in October 2015 claiming that the Malaysia Airlines aircraft appeared to have been downed using a Russia-produced Buk surface-to-air missile system. The report did not identify the exact location from where the missile was fired.

The Russian arms manufacturer that builds Buk missile systems, Almaz-Antey, conducted a separate probe into the crash, finding that the missile that hit the plane could only have been launched from the region of Zaroshchenske, controlled by Kiev forces at the time of the incident.