MH17- Curt Lewis

Malaysia Airlines Crash Investigators May Have Found Missile Clues in Ukraine

The crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July last year, near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine. 

MOSCOW - Prosecutors in the Netherlands revealed on Tuesday that they had found what could be pieces of a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system in eastern Ukraine, in the area of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

The announcement brings the methodical, slow-moving investigation of the crash closer to the version that burst into public view almost immediately last summer after the plane exploded. That version blamed a surface-to-air missile.

It does not, though, assign blame to either the Ukrainian soldiers or the Russian-backed rebels fighting a war in the area. Nor does it blame the Russians.

The revelation is significant as the first from Dutch investigators to link physical evidence with a specific type of missile system, a Buk surface-to-air system.

If confirmed, their discovery could prove embarrassing for Russia, as it would rule out an air-to-air missile strike by a Ukrainian fighter jet as the cause of the disaster, which was the version promulgated by the Russian Defense Ministry soon after the crash.