Outside Parliament House in Canberra yesterday Ka'imi Fairbairn Limited Jersey , relatives of the Australian victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 take part in a service to unveil a memorial on the first anniversary of the plane’sdowning. All 298 passengers and crew on board the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed on July 17, 2014, when it was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine. The majority of the dead were Dutch, but there were also 40 Australian citizens and residents on board. — AFP IN a solemn procession, residents of the Ukrainian village where a Malaysian airliner was shot down with 298 people on board a year ago marched to the crash site yesterday. Half a world away Kendall Langford Limited Jersey , Australia’s prime minister remembered the “savagery” of the attack as he unveiled a plaque in Canberra set in soil from the field where the wreckage fell.
The two ceremonies come amid a sharp dispute over who was responsible for downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, when it was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian and Western authorities say the plane was downed, most likely by mistake Lamarr Houston Limited Jersey , by a missile fired either by the separatists or the Russian troops who they say back the rebels with weapons and manpower.
A preliminary report released in the Netherlands last year said the plane had no technical problems in the seconds before it broke up in the sky after being struck an object.
Several weeks before the plane was shot down, Russia-backed separatists had bragged about acquiring a missile system and had downed several Ukrainian military aircraft in eastern Ukraine, killing 49 people in one incident.
The rebels and Moscow say the separatists had no such missile systems at their disposal and that the plane was hit by a Ukrainian warplane or a Ukrainian-fired missile.
But the rebel denials of shooting down MH17 have been increasingly challenged. The Ukrainian government has also provided purported communications intercepts that it says show rebel involvement.
In the eastern Ukrainian village of Hrabove, 200 residents carrying