The Malaysian airliner came down on July 17, 2014 over conflict-torn eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. Malaysia and the West accused Ukrainian rebels of shooting it down with a Russia-made missile.
On Tuesday, the Dutch Safety Board, tasked with investigation of the crash, released its final report which reiterated that the aircraft was shot down using a Russian-produced Buk surface-to-air missile. The organization did not identify the exact location from where the missile was launched.
"The initial reaction here [in Malaysia] was overwhelming, but the professionalism of my predecessor… helped subdue the negative outburst and address the accusations against Russia, coming mostly from the media," Ambassador Valery Yermolov told RIA Novosti.
"Malaysian officials traveled to Moscow where they were provided with explanations on our view of what happened [to MH17], based on the information we had gathered, and it was handed over to the Malaysian side which used it to adopt a stance on the issue," Yermolov said.
The Russian civil aviation agency has underlined that the Dutch Safety Board’s version of events that led to the MH17 crash was not final.
Buk manufacturer Almaz-Antey has conducted its own probe and challenged the DSF conclusions on the model of the missile used to down the plane, offering its own estimation of where the missile was launched from.
