US stance on MH-17 crash unchanged amid Russian missile maker’s report
The latest conclusions of Russian maker of the Buk air defense missile system have not changed Washington’s position on the crash of Malaysian Boeing in Ukraine, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf has said, TASS reports.
"Well, our assessment has been clear from the beginning that MH-17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine, period. We are confident that no Ukrainian air defense systems were within range of the crash," Harf told reporters.
The spokeswoman added that in her opinion "now the story’s changing on the Russian side."
Mikhail Malyshevsky, an adviser to the chief designer of Almaz-Antey Concern told journalists in Moscow on Tuesday that the Malaysian aircraft above Ukraine was downed by an air defense missile, most likely 9M38M1 of the Buk-M1 air defense system.
In turn, Almaz-Antey Director General Yan Novikov recalled that the missile was discontinued in Russia in 1999.
Almaz-Antey experts said the missile was launched from an area south of the locality of Zaroshchenskoye in Ukraine, while analysis did not confirm the version that the missile was launched from Snezhnoye. "For experimental integrity, we can’t say what side owned the missile," he said.