Missile that hit jet was Russian

A Malaysian airliner shot down in 2014 was struck by a missile that had been moved from Russia into eastern Ukraine, where it was fired from a village controlled by pro-Moscow rebels, international prosecutors said Wednesday.

There was “irrefutable evidence” that a Buk missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, Dutch-led investigators announced in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands, The Guardian reported.

“MH17 was shot down by a 9M38 series missile, launched from a Buk-Telar. This Buk-Telar was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and after launch was subsequently returned to Russian Federation territory,” lead investigator Wilbert Paulissen said.

The findings contradict Moscow’s claims that the Boeing 777 — en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur — was brought down by the Ukrainian military. All 298 people aboard, most of whom were Dutch, perished.

Russia immediately slammed the findings.

“First-hand radar data identified all flying objects which could have been launched or were in the air over the territory controlled by rebels at that moment,” said Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman, Reuters reported.

“The data are clear-cut . . . there is no rocket. If there was a rocket, it could only have been fired from elsewhere.”

On Monday, the Russian military said it had new radio-location data that show the missile did not originate from rebel territory.

“If there was a rocket it could only have been launched from a different area,” Peskov told reporters.

Eduard Basurin, a representative of the Russianbacked separatist forces in Donetsk, told The Guardian that the rebels couldn’t have shot down the plane because they don’t have Buk missiles.