Boeing 777

The US has accused Russia of providing rebels in eastern Ukraine with anti-aircraft systems, which shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 last week, killing 298 people.

US State Secretary John Kerry was quoted by Washington Post as saying: "We do believe they were trying to move back into Russia at least three Buk (missile launch) systems.

"There’s an enormous amount of evidence, even more evidence than I just documented, that points to the involvement of Russia in providing these systems, training the people on them."

Recent reports suspect that Russia delivered multiple SA-11 anti-aircraft systems to rebels by smuggling them into eastern Ukraine with other military equipment, such as tanks.

However, Moscow has been continuously blaming the Ukrainian military and rejected accusations of supplying armed separatists with heavy weapons.

Rebel spokesman Kavtaradze said: "We have found the technical devices that potentially might be the black box. Experts should determine this.

"It will be hard to conduct a full investigation with some of the objects being taken away."

"We expect Malaysian experts to come today, and we will give the technical devices to them.

"We will not provide those things to the Ukrainian side."

In addition, reports said that some of the dead bodies found had been taken to close by rebel-held city of Donetsk.

Ukraine National Security and Defense Council head Andriy Parubiy said: "Their key task is to destroy possible evidence.

"It will be hard to conduct a full investigation with some of the objects being taken away, but we will do our best."

The recent crash of Malaysia Airlines’ MH17 passenger jet in the eastern, rebel-held Ukraine, comes just four months after the disappearance of flight MH370.

Image: A file photo of Malaysian Airlines’ Boeing 777 aircraft. Photo: courtesy of Alan Wilson.

Defence Technology