MH17 downed by missile from territory controlled by Ukrainian military: Russian company

A Malaysian air crash investigator inspects the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), Donetsk region in this July 22, 2014 file photo.[Photo/Agencies]

"Today we can say with certainty that if Boeing has been hit by a surface-to-air missile, it was by the 9M38 missile launched by the BUK-M1 air defense missile system from the vicinity of Zaroshchenskoye settlement," Almaz-Antei CEO Yan Novikov told a press conference.

Zaroshchenskoye village in eastern Ukraine was under the control of Ukrainian military forces rather than insurgents, he said.

Novikov presented results of two experiments done by specialists, with the latest one done on Wednesday showing that MH17 had been hit by an older version of the 9M38 missile, as it did not have pellets of specific form as the newer 9M38M1 missile had.

The experiment used a 9M38M1 missile to fire on an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft, whose fuselage is similar to the parameters of Boeing 777, Novikov said.

He noted that various experiments done by the Russian side "completely contradict the results of the Dutch Safety Board on the type of missile and the launch location."

The Russian investigation results on MH17 were released hours ahead of the Dutch Safety Board, which was expected to present its final report on the incident at 13:15 local time (1115 GMT) on Tuesday in the Netherlands.

Almaz-Antei also refuted allegations that the missile was shot near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which was controlled by Ukrainian insurgents.

Investigation showed that the missile exploded more than 20 meters from the plane's port-side engine, while re-enactment proved that the port-side would not be damaged if the missile were fired from Snizhne, said Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the general designer of Almaz-Antei.

On June 2, the Russian side denied involvement in the downing of the passenger plane, citing investigation results after looking into the wreckage and missile fragments found at the crash site.

Malyshevsky said at that time all evidence pointed to the conclusion that the flight was downed probably by a 9M38M1 missile on the BUK-M1 system which has not been produced in Russia since 1999.

Novikov said Tuesday that the Russian Armed Forces removed 9m38 missiles from service in 2011.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in Ukraine's conflict-torn Donbass region on July 17, 2014 on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board, 193 of whom were Dutch nationals.

The West has been claiming that pro-independence insurgents in eastern Ukraine shot down the aircraft.