Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board: "The plane broke up in the air" 
 
 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board says. 
 
 The missile hit the front left of the plane causing other parts to break off, it said in a final report into the July 2014 disaster, which killed 298 people. 
 
 The West and Ukraine say Russian-backed rebels brought down the Boeing 777, but Russia blames Ukrainian forces. 
 
 The report does not say who fired the missile, but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed. 
 
 The plane - flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur - crashed at the height of the conflict between government troops and pro-Russian separatists. 
 
 Most of the victims were Dutch - 196, including some with dual nationality. The other passengers and crew were nationals from 10 countries. 
 
 How the findings were presented 
 
 A separate Dutch-led criminal investigation is under way. 
 
 The report says the three crew members in the cockpit were killed by the missile explosion instantly. 
 
 However, it adds, it was unclear at which point the others died, and the possibility of some remaining conscious for some time during the one-and-a-half minutes it took for the plane to go down could not be ruled out. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption An animated video from the Dutch Safety Board shows the damage to the plane and how it was caused 
 
 Matching paint 
 
 Presenting its findings at the Gilze-Rijen military base in the Netherlands, the safety board showed plane parts that had been brought back from the rebel-held Donetsk region and reconstructed. 
 
 Board president Djibbe Joustra said the impact pattern could not have been caused by a meteor, an air-to-air missile or an internal explosion. 
 
 Instead, he said, a warhead carried by a surface-to-air missile had detonated above the left-hand side of the cockpit, causing structural damage. 
 
 Image copyright Dutch Safety Board Image caption This oxygen mask was found around the neck of one of the passengers, suggesting death was not immediate 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jeremy Pocock, father of Ben Pocock: "We have to make sure there is justice at the end of this" 
 
 Mr Joustra said the missile was a Buk - which experts say both Russian and Ukrainian armies possess. 
 
 He added that paint had been found on metal fragments within the plane that matched with missile fragments on the ground. 
 
 Mr Joustra also said there had been sufficient reason to close off Ukrainian airspace but Ukraine did not do that - and on the day of the crash, 160 flights flew over the area in question. 
 
 Read more 
 
 Key findings - Dutch Safety Board report in a nutshell 
 
 Malaysia plane crash: What we know - How flight MH17 unfolded 
 
 A reporter's story - Searching for truth at the crash site 
 
 Remembering the victims - Shared sadness and sunflowers 
 
 The board does not have the authority to apportion blame, under the rules governing international crash investigations. 
 
 But speaking to reporters after the news conference, Mr Joustra said pro-Russian rebels were in charge of the area from where the missile that hit MH17 had been fired. 
 
 The government in Ukraine and several Western officials have said the missile was brought from Russia into the rebel-held part of Ukraine. 
 
 The Dutch-led criminal investigation has already published photos of the launcher being transported around rebel areas. 
 
 Warhead discrepancy 
 
 In the report, the Dutch Safety Board says the weapon used was a 9N314M-model warhead carried on the 9M38M1 missile, as installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system. 
 
 It adds that the type of fragments found in the wreckage and bodies of crew members in the cockpit were bow-tie or cube shaped - only found in the 9N314M warhead. 
 
 Image copyright Dutch Safety Board 
 
 Image copyright Dutch Safety Board 
 
 However, the Russian side disputed the Dutch findings insisting that only older warheads and missiles of the 9M38 type still in the hands of the Ukrainian army could have been used as they were the only weapons with "butterfly or bow-tie" fragments. The Russian army had phased them out. 
 
 "The 9M38M1 missile has no H-shaped striking elements," Yan Novikov, the head of Buk missile company Almaz-Antey said. 
 
 In their submission to the Dutch report, the Russian experts argue that investigators should not have discounted other potential reasons for plane's destruction, such as an air-to-air rocket. This is completely rejected by the Dutch Safety Board. 
 
 Dutch Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke on Tuesday said a number of "persons of interest" had been identified, but there was still much to be done and the inquiry would not be finished this year. 
 
 In official reaction on Tuesday: 
 
 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte urged Russia to co-operate in the investigation, saying "the priority now is to find and pursue those who are responsible" 
 
 Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says he had "no doubt" that the crash was "a planned operation of the Russian special services" 
 
 The White House said the US would "fully support all efforts to bring to justice those responsible" 
 
 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov called the Dutch crash investigation "biased in nature" and said Russia was "ready to present its own information" 
 
 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said his government's "commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice remains as strong as it was on that fateful day 17 July 2014" 
 
 Eduard Basurin, deputy defence minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, said rebel forces "did not have a Buk anti-air defence system at that time". 
 
 Report 'wrong' 
 
 Earlier, Russian officials from Almaz-Antey - the state firm that manufactures Buk missiles - said the evidence suggested the plane had been shot down by a Buk missile fired by Ukrainian forces. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The report left key questions unanswered 
 
 Using their own simulation, the officials said the missile had been fired from Zaroshchenke in Ukrainian-controlled territory, some 20km (12 miles) away from the area highlighted by the Dutch report. 
 
 They argued the missile used was a decades-old model no longer used by Russian forces. 
 
 In July, Russia vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council to set up an international tribunal into the MH17 air disaster. 
 
 President Vladimir Putin said at the time that such a tribunal would be "premature" and "counterproductive". ||||| 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. ||||| Gilze-Rijen air force base: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed last year after it was hit by a Russian-made Buk surface to air missile, an air safety investigation has found, which killed the pilots immediately but may have left passengers alive for up to a full minute and a half. 
 
 A report by the Dutch Safety Board, released on Tuesday in the Netherlands, found that a Russian-made Buk missile exploded just a few metres above and to the left of the plane's cockpit. 
 
 "(The) impact (of the missile shrapnel) was only instantly fatal to the occupants of the cockpit," the report found. 
 
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 Link The reconstructed cockpit of MH17 at the presentation of the Dutch Safety Board's final report into the tragedy. Photo: AP 
 
 Within a second the plane began to break up, exposing other crew and passengers to deafening noise, "abrupt deceleration, decompression, reduced oxygen level, extreme cold, powerful airflow (and) objects flying around". 
 
 "Some occupants suffered serious injuries that probably caused their death. In others, the exposure led to reduced awareness or unconsciousness in a very short space of time." 
 
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 However it was not possible to say when they died. 
 
 "It cannot be ruled out that some occupants remained conscious for some time during the one to one and a half minutes for which the crash lasted," the report said. 
 
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 Link Tjibbe Joustra, head of the Dutch Safety Board, presents the final report into what caused MH17, seen reconstructed at rear, to break up high over Ukraine last year. Photo: AP 
 
 There were no signs of 'conscious actions' from passengers such as composing text messages or taking photographs on mobile phones. However, "one passenger was found with an oxygen mask around the neck... it remains unclear whether the person concerned put on the mask in a reflex or that it was done by someone on the ground after the passenger's death." 
 
 Relatives were briefed by the board about the findings and one man, Barry Sweeney, whose 28-year-old son Liam was on board, told the BBC they were told the explosion of the missile would have caused disorientation and confusion in the rest of the plane. 
 
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 Link MH17 crashed over Donetsk, Ukraine after being shot down by Russia-backed rebels using a Russian missile. Photo: Kate Geraghty 
 
 "Hopefully most people were unconscious by the time this happened and death would have occurred pretty quick," he said. 
 
 "That is a comfort for 298 sets of relatives." 
 
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 Link Australian Federal Police and their Dutch counterparts searching at the MH17 crash site. Photo: Kate Geraghty 
 
 Risks not properly identified 
 
 The investigators' report found that the airline and air traffic bodies had not "adequately identified the risks to civil aviation brought about by the armed conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine". 
 
 Ukraine itself came in for strong criticism, for not closing the airspace over a region where scores of military aircraft had been shot down in the previous few months. 
 
 MH17 crashed in Ukraine's east on July 17, 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members aboard the Boeing 777 – including 39 people who called Australia home. 
 
 The report was presented at Gilze-Rijen air force base in the Netherlands, by Dutch Safety Board chairman Tjibbe Joustra, standing in front of a reconstruction of the front third of the plane, rebuilt from wreckage recovered from the fields of eastern Ukraine. 
 
 The reconstruction showed the cockpit area riddled with holes, punctured by shrapnel from the exploding missile. Buk missiles are designed to explode next to their targets, rather than collide directly with them. 
 
 "Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane," Mr Joustra said. "None of the aviation parties involved recognised the risks posed to civil aviation by the conflict on ground." 
 
 There was sufficient reason to close airspace as a precaution, Mr Joustra said, as more than 60 military aircraft had been brought down in the months prior, and there was evidence of weapons systems that could reach civil aircraft cruising altitude. 
 
 The reason for the omission was "straightforward and disquieting", he said – "Nobody had thought that civil aviation was at risk (even though) there was undeniably an armed conflict taking place on the ground." 
 
 Ukraine, which was responsible for the safety of the airspace under international law, came in for strong criticism for not closing its airspace as a precaution. However other states and airline operators were also at fault, and international rules needed to be changed, the investigators said. 
 
 Alternative theories ruled out 
 
 Investigators forensically examined the wreckage of the plane, recovered from the fields of eastern Ukraine, and eliminated the possibilities that the plane was brought down by an internal explosion, by gunfire or air-to-air attack. 
 
 They even excluded one theory that it was hit by a meteor. 
 
 "We investigated and eliminated the possibilities one by one," Mr Joustra said. 
 
 Investigators found a Buk warhead detonated outside the aircraft, slightly in front and above the left side of the cockpit. Thousands of pre-formed metal fragments penetrated the front of the plane with great force. 
 
 Computer simulations backed up this theory, and it was also corroborated by millisecond analysis of the cockpit voice recorder. 
 
 The front of the plane broke off, the rest of the plane broke up in mid air. The tail section crashed first, then the centre, with the engines, hit the ground upside down and caught fire. 
 
 Mr Joustra said the launch site of the missile could be narrowed to a 320 square km area in eastern Ukraine, but further work narrowing this area was beyond the investigators' mandate. 
 
 The finding contradicts one theory pushed by Russia and its supporters, that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet. 
 
 However the investigators did not directly confront another Russian theory: that the missile was fired by the Ukrainian army, rather than by Russian-backed separatists (or Russian soldiers working with the separatists). 
 
 Russian missile manufacturer rejects findings 
 
 Before the Dutch report was released, Russia's state arms producer (and Buk missile manufacturer) Almaz-Antey announced the results of its own investigation. 
 
 The manufacturer said it had fired Buk missiles at a decommissioned jet plane, similar to a Boeing 777, so they could examine the pattern of impact. 
 
 They said the results demonstrated that MH17 was shot down by an old form of Buk missile – a 9M38 – which was not in use by the Russian army, and is a decade past the 'use-by date' intended by the manufacturer. 
 
 The last missile of this type was produced in the Soviet Union in 1986 and Russia decommissioned its remaining 9M38s in 2011, Russian state-sponsored Sputnik News reported. 
 
 "The results of the experiment completely contradict the results of the Dutch commission on the type of missile and the location of its launch," Almaz-Antey CEO Yan Novikov told journalists. 
 
 His company's report also said the missile was fired from near the village of Zaroschenskoye – an area reportedly under Ukrainian control at the time. 
 
 However they produced no eyewitness evidence of a Buk in that region at the time, in contrast to the significant amount of eyewitness, video and photographic evidence of a Buk in rebel-controlled territory on the day MH17 came down. 
 
 And Dutch TV reporter Rudy Bouma Tweeted that he had visited Zaroschenskoye recently and "villagers didn't witness (a) Buk launch previous to (the) crash", though the Ukrainian army was around 5km away at the time. 
 
 The Dutch report was not intended to address "questions of blame or liability", a DSB spokesman said. 
 
 However one DSB source told the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant the BUK missile is developed and made in Russia, and "It can be assumed that the rebels would not be able to operate such a device. I suspect the involvement of former Russian military officials". 
 
 World leaders react, vow justice 
 
 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop released a joint statement welcoming the findings, saying their thoughts and prayers were with the families and loved ones of those killed on the flight. 
 
 Ms Bishop said the reports findings provided critical insight into the incident. 
 
 "It determines the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, consistent with the Australian government's initial assessment of the incident," she said. 
 
 The criminal investigation into who was responsible for the tragedy is run separately by an international 'Joint Investigation Team', including Australian federal police, who recently told Fairfax it may be another year before the case is ready for prosecution. 
 
 And in any case it is still unclear where the case could be tried. Russia vetoed a proposal for an international tribunal that was proposed by Australia and the Netherlands at the United Nations in July. 
 
 "We, and other partner governments of the Joint Investigation Team, remain absolutely committed to seeing justice done," said Ms Bishop. 
 
 Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak said countries must work together to hold those responsible for "this murderous" act after speaking with Mr Turnbull about the MH17 findings, and labelled the attack as "unforseeable". 
 
 "Fifteen months have passed but our commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice remains as strong as it was on that fateful day when hundreds of innocent people lost their lives in a conflict that was not theirs," Mr Najib said in a statement. 
 
 "This was an unforeseeable act and, of the 160 flights that were on MH17's general route that day, not one was advised by the relevant authorities about any specific threat," he said. 
 
 The White House released a statement calling the report an "important milestone in the effort to hold accountable those responsible." 
 
 with Lindsay Murdoch, AAP ||||| BUNNIK, Netherlands (Reuters) - Dutch prosecutors identified a Russian military unit on Thursday as the source of the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. 
 
 The airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a Russian-made “Buk” anti-aircraft missile on July 17, 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatists. There were no survivors. Two thirds of those killed were Dutch. 
 
 “The Buk 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.” 
 
 Russia repeated on Thursday that it had nothing to do with the incident. 
 
 “Not a single air defense missile launcher of the Russian Armed Forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the Defence Ministry as saying in a statement. 
 
 Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the findings had been based on fake data presented by bloggers and that Moscow’s information regarding the case had been largely ignored. 
 
 “This is an example of baseless accusations aimed at discrediting our country in the eyes of the international community,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 
 
 The U.S. State Department said on Thursday the United States had “complete confidence” in the findings and called on Russia to admit its involvement. 
 
 “It is time for Russia to cease its lies and account for its role in the shoot down,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
 “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 from their military forces was used.” 
 
 Prosecutors showed photos and videos of a truck convoy carrying the system as it crossed the border from Russia to Ukraine. It crossed back several days later with one missile missing. The vehicles had serial numbers and other markings that were unique to the 53rd Brigade, an anti-aircraft unit based in the western Russian city of Kursk, they said. 
 
 In the interim update on their investigation, prosecutors said they had trimmed their list of possible suspects from more than a hundred to several dozen. 
 
 Westerbeke 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. 
 
 HOLD RUSSIA ACCOUNTABLE 
 
 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte cut short a trip to India to return in time for a cabinet meeting on Friday to discuss the latest findings in the inquiry. 
 
 The MH17 Disaster Foundation representing families of the victims demanded that the Dutch government take legal action to hold the Russian state accountable. 
 
 “It must go beyond legal exploration after this,” board member Piet Ploeg was quoted by broadcaster NOS as saying. 
 
 A Joint Investigation Team, drawn from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, is gathering evidence for a criminal prosecution in the downing of the plane. 
 
 Ukrainian Army General Vasyl Hrytsak, a member of the investigation team, told Reuters the next crucial step would be to pinpoint who issued the orders to move the missile system. 
 
 The Dutch Safety Board concluded in an October 2015 report that the Boeing 777 was struck by a Russian-made Buk missile. 
 
 Slideshow (8 Images)
– A Dutch report on the MH17 crash concludes the plane was shot down by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile that struck the front left side of the plane near the cockpit, Dutch Safety Board Chairman Tjibbe Joustra said at a press conference on Tuesday. The report, the result of a 15-month-long investigation, notes the explosion sent thousands of metal objects in all directions and hundreds hit the plane with "tremendous force," Joustra said, per the Guardian. He added shrapnel from the Buk missile was found inside the bodies of the pilots, who died instantly, along with traces of paint from a Buk missile. The BBC's Anna Holligan, who spoke to relatives briefed on the report, says all passengers and crew would've lost consciousness immediately as the plane broke apart in the air. A 65-foot reconstruction of a portion of the plane, revealed at the press conference, showed holes perforating the upper part of the cockpit, according to reporter Luke Harding. "We can't be 100% sure" that no one suffered, "but we've got to sort of think that was the case," a relative says. The report mainly focuses on the cause of the crash and avoids "blame and culpability"; a separate criminal investigation will point fingers, reports AFP. The report at least rejects Moscow's claim that the Boeing 777 was downed by a missile fired by Ukrainian troops on July 17, 2014, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. But about 30 minutes before the report's release, Moscow had dismissed it. "It's always special when people already know that they don't agree with a report that's not even published yet," Joustra said.