RUSSIAN MISSILE SHOT DOWN MH 17(MALAYSIA AIR LINE).

The wrecked cockpit of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17 is presented to the press during a presentation of the final report on the cause of the its crash at the Gilze Rijen airbase on Tuesday.

The Dutch Safety Board said Tuesday the missile that shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 over Ukraine in July 2014, killing all 298 civilians on board, was Russian-made and fired from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

A Buk surface-to-air missile was fired at the airliner from somewhere within a 320-square mile area occupied by separatists rebels in eastern Ukraine, according to the group charged with investigating the incident. It exploded less than one meter from the cockpit of the plane.

The incident sparked international outrage last year as fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine boiled over, particularly following reports Russian-backed separatists prevented international inspectors from accessing the crash site.

Tuesday’s report was not designed to assign blame to who specifically was responsible for the missile strike, which will be the subject of a subsequent international investigation.

The White House has insisted the Russian government and Vladimir Putin had at least indirect involvement in the strike, which it calls a “terrible tragedy.”

Dutch Safety Board Chairman Tjibbe Joustra speaks in front of the wrecked cockpit of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17 on Tuesday.

“Our assessment is unchanged — MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Tuesday morning.

In remarks shortly after the incident last July, President Barack Obama criticized the Russian-backed rebels who had isolated the crash site and begun removing evidence. He drew a direct line between their activities and Moscow.

 “Russia has urged them on, Russia has trained them, Russia has armed them,” he said at the time. “Russia, and President Putin in particular, has direct responsibility to compel them to cooperate with the investigation.”

Obama announced new sanctions against Russia two weeks later.

Russia has denied any involvement in the incident, and says its own investigation into the MH 17 crash contradicts the findings of the Dutch investigators. The Associated Press reports.

Russian state-sponsored media released a video from Almaz-Antey, the manufacturer, showing the effect of a Buk missile detonating next to an airliner cockpit. It claims the weapon that shot down the airliner was a much older model, and was fired from a part of Ukraine controlled by local government forces.