Gilze-Rijen (Netherlands) (AFP) - Investigators concluded Tuesday (Oct. 13, 2015) that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired over war-torn Ukraine, but 15 months after the disaster Russia and the West remain locked in a bitter blame game.
The Dutch-led inquiry did not identify who launched the missile that crashed into the Boeing 777 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
But Russia, Ukraine and Western nations all seized the moment to step up accusations that the fault for the tragedy lay at someone else's door.
"Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit," the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, told a press conference.
"This warhead fits the kind of missile that is installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system."
