Russia Denies Involvement, Says MH17 Air Crash Done By Ukrainian Buk Missile

Russia has denied using Buk missile in the Malaysian MH17 flight crash that happened last summer and says that it was done by the missile in possession of  Ukrainian troops within three-four kilometres area.

The official report however have concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired from rebel-held eastern Ukraine.

The report rejects Moscow's contention that the plane was hit by a missile fired by Ukrainian troops as it flew at some 33,000 feet above the territory. 

The report says, "The investigation was not concerned with question of blame or liability. Answering those question is a matter for the criminal investigation."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday was quoted as saying to AFP news agency that there were "many, many strange things" about the investigation, including the failure to get the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to head it.

"There were no responses to the many questions that Russia sent to this investigative group," he said.

The MH17 flight was brought down with a high degree of accuracy last summer killing 298 passengers onboard. Russian Almaz-Antey had handed over first set of field experimental documents of the investigations carried out by the company in August to the international commission, Tass reported Tuesday.

However the company’s findings of the experimental documents have been ignored in the preliminary report.

Russia has said 9M38 (Buk) missile being used to bring down the aircraft, but says that it is unknown how many such missiles are in Kiev’s possession at present.

"We said in a presentation on June 2 that the concern had been involved in 2005 in the pre-contract work to assess the possibility of renewing the Ukrainian army’s missiles. The contract had not been concluded then, but we still have the examination certificates. There were about 991 9M28M1 missiles (in the Ukrainian army), and there were 502 older missiles - 9M38 in Ukraine then. We don’t know their present number,” Almaz-Antey’s CEO, Yan Novikov was quoted as saying by Tass.

"In August we handed over the documents on the first stage of the experiment to the commission, but that was again ignored in the preliminary report," Novikov said.

"We were prepared to provide both experimental procedure and techniques, but we were told ‘Thank you very much’, and that was the end of it," adviser to the corporation’s chief designer Mikahil Malyshevsky noted.

According to him, Almaz-Antey conducted the second stage of the experiment after the commission’s experts expressed doubts that the striking elements would leave the same punctures in the aircraft fuselage.

Novikov added that Almaz-Antey was ready to hand over all research data to the international commission on the investigation of the MH17 air crash and the European court reviewing the corporation’s lawsuit on the unlawful nature of the sanctions imposed on it. According to Almaz-Antey's general director, the sanctions were the main reason for the investigation conducted by the corporation.

The company believes that the missile fragments in the bodies of MH17 victims would confirm their version of investigation.

The advisor also noted that analysis of photographs supplied by the commission on investigating MH17 crash in east Ukraine last year showed that both the cockpit of the plane and its wing with the left stabilizer were damaged.

"On the basis of the analysis of all elements, we came to a conclusion that the majority of striking elements was moving along the plane’s fuselage. The wing and part of the left stabilizer also have damages, the sizes of which allow establishing that they were inflicted by striking elements of the missile fired from a Buk system," Malyshevsky said.