Aleksandr Borodai, the leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, has publicly denied rebel involvement in the crash, Alec Luhn reports.
Borodai
tweeted (Russian) that the rebels were not involved in the attack. "According to initial information, the plane was shot down by Ukrainian air defence. The rebels don't have weapons with which they could shoot down a plane at 10,000 metres"
But the Donetsk People's Republic said in June its forces had captured Buk missiles from a Ukrainian military base,
Itar-Tass news agency reported. The Buk missile has a range of 18,000 metres, according to some accounts.