Ukraine is fully responsible for tragedy of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday.
High-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside cause the MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine, the Dutch Safety Board investigating the disaster says in its first preliminary report.
Russia is demanding to know why international investigators have yet to publish the black box data from a Malaysian airliner that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July.
The recovery mission at the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine was suspended until further notice due to the deteriorating security conditions in the area.
Ukrainian armed forces mounted a major onslaught against pro-Russian separatist fighters Sunday in an attempt to gain control over the area where a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed earlier this month.
Victims of the Malaysian jetliner shot down over Ukraine returned at last Wednesday to Dutch soil in 40 wooden coffins, solemnly and gently carried to 40 identical hearses, flags at half-staff flapping in the wind.
The Netherlands held a day of national mourning Wednesday for the first time since 1962, commemorating the victims of the MH17 air crash disaster in eastern Ukraine.
The first plane carrying the remains of victims of crashed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 took off Wednesday from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv to the Netherlands.
A train carrying the remains of some of the 298 victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 arrived in a Ukrainian government-held city on Tuesday on the first leg of their final journey home to be reclaimed by their families.
The black boxes from the crashed flight MH17 have been handed over to Dutch investigators in Ukraine, and will later be sent to Britain for forensic analysis.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott warns of a potential cover-up in the investigation of the downed Malaysian Airlines MH17, lashing the "evidence tampering on an industrial scale."
The Estonian outgoing EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said the airspace over eastern Ukraine has now been shut down for civilian traffic after the crash of flight MH17.