READ MORE: Missile Allegedly Used to Down MH17 Invisible Due to Speed — Dutch Prosecutors

Earlier in the day, head of the Dutch National Police's Central Crime Investigation department Wilbert Paulissen said that the missile, which downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014, was launched by the Buk TELAR belonging to the Russian Armed Forces. The Joint Investigation Team "has come to the conclusion that the BUK-TELAR that shot down MH17 came from 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia," top Dutch investigator Wilbert Paulissen said. He told reporters gathered for a press conference that “the 53rd Brigade forms part of the Russian armed forces.”

The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was blown out of the sky over conflict-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. In 2016, in its previous interim report, the JIT announced that MH17 had been hit by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from the village of Pervomaysk held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine; and that the missile launcher had been transported into Ukraine from Russia. The investigation team announced they had found seven visual "fingerprints" of the Buk-TELAR missile from the 53rd brigade, which matched photos and videos taken both within Russia and inside Ukraine around the time that MH17 was shot down.
A Dutch official from the international Joint Investigation Team tells reporters the Russian Armed Forces were responsible for the shootdown. The Russian Defence Ministry denies its units were involved.