Dutch investigators confirm U.S. findings that militants downed MH17 – U.S. Department of State

"And from the very beginning, we have said that – and we had information that made clear to us that the general launch area was in separatist-held territory. And I think that that's supported by what the Dutch Safety Board has reported – that that area that they reported it coming from is the same area where we believed it came from at the time," he said at a briefing in Washington on Wednesday. According to him, the report doesn't specify the exact site from where the missile was launched. "But in terms of the general area in which it occurred, their findings concurred with our findings at the time that it was in an area that was controlled largely by separatists," Kirby said. As reported, the Dutch Safety Board released a report into the cause of the MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine which concluded that the plane was shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile system on July 17, 2014. The 320-square-kilometre area from which the missile was launched has been determined on the basis of various simulations. "Additional forensic investigation will be needed to establish the exact launching location; however, such an investigation lies outside the scope of the Dutch Safety Board's mandate," the report said.