A tug of war is under way for possession of doomed flight MH17's "black box" recorder amid reports the device, which could provide the key to the crash investigation, has already been sent to Moscow. 
 
 Aviation experts said the black box, comprising cockpit voice and data recordings, would establish for certain whether the plane was shot down and where the deadly missile may have been fired from. 
 
 The data and voice recorders on Boeing 777s like the Malaysia Airlines one that crashed are among the most sophisticated in civilian use. 
 
 But as politicians including US President Barack Obama called for international investigators to be given unhindered access to the crash site it emerged it may already be too late for them to retrieve the device. 
 
 The news service Interfax reported that rebel Russian separatist forces in Ukraine had already found the black box and agreed to give it to a Russian-run regional air safety authority. 
 
 Andrei Purgin, the self-styled deputy prime minister of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, told Interfax: "Of course, we most likely will give them (the recorders) to the Interstate Aviation Committee, to Moscow. 
 
 High-level experts, who will be able to determine exactly the reason of the catastrophe, work there." 
 
 Whoever has access to the black box will have control over the information from the last moments of the flight, and they could prevent impartial investigators from analysing it. 
 
 Russian radio station Kommersant FM also reported that the black box was on its way to Moscow. 
 
 The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, said: "An international team must have full access to the crash site. And no one should interfere with the area, or move any debris, including the black box." 
 
 He said the Ukraine government had vowed to include a Malaysian team in the crash investigation, and that there would be negotiations with the separatists to establish a "humanitarian corridor to the crash site". 
 
 Former US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Deborah Hersman, one of the foremost accident investigators in the world, told NBC: "Finding all four corners of the aircraft, the nose, the tail, and the two wingtips, and most importantly those two recorders, the fight data reorder and the cockpit voice recorder, that's the road map they'll be looking at over the next 24 to 48 hours. 
 
 "Those two devices hold the best information about what happened in the last minutes prior to the crash." 
 
 She added: "Investigators like to identify some really critical parts first. They want to identify the origination of the break up, where that sequence started. Just like when they put together the pieces of the shuttle across multiple states, it's that trajectory your trying to take a look at." 
 
 She said the conflict in Ukraine would "absolutely" affect the investigation. 
 
 She said: "When you go into an active war zone you're concerned first and foremost about your people that you're putting on the ground. 
 
 "There's a lot going on here and it's a real challenge for anyone, but particularly for a country in a war torn area like this." 
 
 It was not clear if the US would be involved in the investigation. If Americans were confirmed to be on the plane the FBI would be expected to launch a probe. The NTSB would also be expected to investigate because the plane was built in the US. 
 
 Mr Purgin said a truce of a few days could be agreed to help with the investigation. 
 
 Mr Obama said the investigation must be must be a"prompt and unimpeded". 
 
 In a statement the White House said: "We urge all concerned – Russia, the pro-Russian separatists, and Ukraine – to support an immediate ceasefire in order to ensure safe and unfettered access to the crash site for international investigators and in order to facilitate the recovery of remains. 
 
 "It is vital that no evidence be tampered with in any way and that all potential evidence and remains at the crash site are undisturbed." 
 
 Flight MH17 had 298 people on board when it crashed near the town of Torez in Donetsk. 
 
 The US has sophisticated systems that can detect missile launches by identifying the heat from a rocket engine. 
 
 A US official told CNN one of its systems picked up a surface-to-air missile tracking an aircraft just before flight MH17 went down. The US is studying the trajectory of the missile to establish where it was fired from. 
 
 Officials in the US have yet to establish whether the weapon, believed to be a Buk anti-aircraft missile battery, was fired from the Russian or Ukrainian side of the border. 
 
 But they believe it is more likely to have been launched by pro-Russian separatists than Ukrainian government forces. 
 
 Ukraine's SBU security service have published what they said were two intercepted telephone conversations proving separatist rebels downed the plane. 
 
 The first is purported to be between Igor Bezler, commander of rebel forces in the town of Horlivka, and a man identified as Vasili Geranin, a colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency. 
 
 Speaking in Russian, the voice identified as Bezler's informs "Geranin" that an aircraft has been shot down and that a team has been sent to inspect the wreckage and search for survivors. 
 
 Later, two other men – using the noms de guerre "Major" and "Greek" – are heard discussing the discovery that a "100 per cent civilian" aircraft was shot down. 
 
 "I'm only where the first bodies fell," Major tells Greek. "F***, the debris fell right in people's gardens. There are civilian things. Medicine, towels, toilet paper." The recordings have not been independently verified. ||||| THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Netherlands told Moscow on Friday it will hold the Russian state legally responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014, after investigators concluded that a Russian army missile system was used in the attack. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: Dutch police officer Wilbert Paulissen, head of the National Crime Squad, is pictured next to a damaged missile as he presents interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo 
 
 MH17 was shot down over territory held by pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine as it flew from Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people onboard, roughly two-thirds of them Dutch. 
 
 A team of international investigators said on Thursday that the “Buk” missile system used to bring down the passenger plane came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the western Russian city of Kursk. 
 
 “It is the first time the finger points to one specific country,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting. “We are holding Russia responsible for their role in the deployment of the Buk rocket system.” 
 
 The diplomatic escalation comes at a time when relations between Western powers and Russia have reached their lowest point in decades. 
 
 “Russia didn’t cooperate with the international legal requests in relation to the investigation,” Rutte said, referring to the probe carried out by prosecutors from Australia, Malaysia, Belgium, Ukraine and the Netherlands. 
 
 The Netherlands and Australia informed Moscow that it expects Russia to now provide full assistance to the investigation, which is in the final stage of identifying perpetrators to be tried under Dutch law. 
 
 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington supported the decisions by the Netherlands and Australia “to hold Russia to account.” 
 
 FILE PHOTO: A damaged missile is displayed during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine who present interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo 
 
 “It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH-17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign,” she said. 
 
 Russia has always denied any involvement, and said on Thursday none of its missile launchers had ever entered Ukraine, despite photographic evidence presented by prosecutors. 
 
 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday his Dutch counterpart had been unable to provide evidence of Russia’s involvement in the crash, the Russian TASS news agency reported. 
 
 Rutte declined to specify what steps would follow if Moscow continued to fail to cooperate. The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, was quoted by the TASS Russian news agency as saying on Friday that Russia was prepared for everything, including new sanctions. 
 
 Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the Netherlands and Australia would seek unspecified financial damages. 
 
 Blok said that attempts to hold Russia responsible for the plane’s downing under international law would be a different, parallel process from the ongoing investigation by prosecutors seeking to establish individual criminal responsibility. 
 
 Russia is already under U.S. and European sanctions over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. More recently, dozens of countries have expelled Russian diplomats in solidarity with Britain which accused Moscow of using a nerve agent to poison an ex-spy and his daughter in an English city in March. 
 
 The United States has tightened sanctions this year after accusing Russia of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Russia denies all of the Western accusations against it and says it is the target of a propaganda campaign. ||||| A man stands at the crash site July 26 of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. (Photo: Bulent Kilic, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 Data downloaded from a black box retrieved from the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are consistent with a missile attack, national news media are reporting, citing an unidentified European air safety official. 
 
 The source told CBS News the findings indicate the plane's fuselage was hit by shrapnel from a missile explosion. 
 
 "It did what it was designed to do — bring down airplanes," the source told CBS. 
 
 A thorough investigation of the site, however, remains elusive 10 days after the jetliner crashed in an area of eastern Ukraine held by ethnic-Russian separatists. On Sunday, a team of international police officers cleared by separatist leader Alexander Borodai to visit the site canceled the trip when fighting broke out in the area. 
 
 Alexander Hug, the deputy head of a monitoring team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said it was too dangerous for the unarmed officers to travel to the site. 
 
 Hug said the police mission, which is comprised of officers from the Netherlands and Australia, will reconsider resuming operations if security improves. Australian prime minister Tony Abbott had said earlier Sunday that unarmed Australian police would be sent to the crash site as part of a Dutch-led police force to secure the area and help recover victims' remains. Crash victims include 37 Australians. 
 
 Ukraine's National Security Council said that government troops have encircled Horlivka, a key rebel stronghold near the crash site. A representative of the separatist military command in Donetsk confirmed that there had been fighting in Horlivka, but said that rebel fighters were holding their positions. 
 
 The Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight crashed July 17, killing all 298 people on board, most of them Dutch citizens. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say it was shot down by a missile from rebel territory, most likely by mistake. 
 
 Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin, speaking Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation, that Russia was responsible for the air tragedy. He acknowledged that separatists could easily buy some weapons on the black market, but that there are limits. 
 
 "How can you buy on the black market a highly sophisticated, anti-aircraft missile capable to shoot down planes at the altitude of 10,000 meters?" Klimkin said. "You imagine that the terrorists can operate highly sophisticated weapons there? It's of course about responsibility of those (Russians) who bring also across the border all inflow of weapons and weaponry.'' 
 
 Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has repeatedly dismissed accusations that ethnic-Russian separatists — or Russians themselves — shot down the plane, saying that if the U.S. officials had proof "how come they have not been made public?" 
 
 On Saturday, the parents of a 25-year-old victim visited the site. Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski and Jerzy Dyczynski traveled from Perth, Australia, and had to cross dangerous pro-Russian rebel-held territory to honor their daughter, Fatima. 
 
 "We have promised our daughter we will come here," Rudhart-Dyczynski told NBC News. 
 
 Flights from Ukraine to the Netherlands have taken 227 caskets containing victims of the plane disaster. Officials say the exact number of people held in the caskets still needs to be determined by forensic experts in the Netherlands. 
 
 Ukraine's National Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said that Ukrainian troops were engaging rebels in fighting at several locations Sunday, including near the town of Debaltseve, which is 15 miles northwest of the crash site. 
 
 The Malaysia Airlines disaster prompted some expectation in the West that Russia would scale back its involvement in the uprising in Ukraine's east. However, Russia launched artillery attacks from its soil into Ukraine on Friday, while the United States said it has seen powerful rocket systems moving closer to the Ukraine border. 
 
 Contributing: Natalie DiBlasio and Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY; Associated Press 
 
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– The investigation into what happened to Malaysia Airlines MH17 took big steps forward today, with victims' bodies finally arriving by train in a Ukraine town and Malaysia declaring that the black boxes are in "good condition." But Moscow, in the meantime, sought to cast doubt on the generally accepted theory that pro-Russian separatists were to blame, reports the Wall Street Journal. At an official briefing last night, the defense ministry said that its radar spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity and that it was probably a Ukraine fighter jet, which could have shot down the plane. The air force chief also suggested that a Ukraine missile system could have hit the plane from the ground, and he said satellite imagery suggested that Ukraine had been moving such systems into the area. He offered no proof, but as Katie Stallard at Sky News writes, "Russia doesn't need to prove its case—all it needs is to create one, to insist that there are different versions of events, that there is credible claim and counter-claim." Meanwhile, the refrigerated train carrying passengers arrived in the Ukraine town of Kharkiv, reports the AP. Forensic experts from the Netherlands, which is taking the lead in the investigation, were to prepare the bodies today for transport to Amsterdam, probably tomorrow. Meanwhile, Malaysia's prime minister declared the black boxes to be in "good condition," reports MarketWatch. Malaysia will hold them until they are turned over to international investigators.