The United States has concluded that a missile shot down the Malaysia Airlines passenger Boeing 777 on flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, said a U.S. official speaking to CNN. The bombing of the plane caused it to crash in a rebel-controlled part of the east Ukraine yesterday killing all 298 people on board (283 passengers, including 3 babies, and 15 crew members).

U.S. intelligence agencies are divided on who fired down the jet with Ukrainian officials blaming pro-Russian separatists. Russia, however, is denying responsibility for the disaster. “We didn’t do it,” said Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin to the Financial Times.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is blaming Ukraine for the attack. “This tragedy would not have happened, if there had been peace on that land, or in any case, if military operations in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed. And without a doubt the government of the territory on which it happened bears the responsibility for this frightening tragedy,” said Mr. Putin in a televised interview.

On its part, the Obama administration believes that Ukraine did not have control of the region or the motivation to shoot down the plane, said a U.S. official to the CNN.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the plane never made a distress call and he called for an international team to have full access to the site where the plane fell. The mystery surrounding this Malaysian Airlines flight has rekindled memories from the puzzling disappearance of another Malaysian Airlines fight MH370 just a few months earlier to this incident.

Officials say that citizens of nine nations were on the plane. The nationalities of these are:

The Ukrainian government claims that there were 23 Americans among the 41 passengers whose background is unverified, however this has yet to be officially confirmed. A number of high-profile HIV researchers were also on the flight en route to an AIDS conference taking place in Australia.

Pro-Russian separatists have agreed to consider a three-day cease-fire to allow recovery operations for the plane that crashed in the village of Hrabove, 25 miles away from the Russian border. The separatists are also reported to have found the plane’s black box among the crash debris that they say they will hand to Moscow. The U.S. has offered to send investigators to the area to help in the search.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that the situation is being closely monitored by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The U.N. Security Council is meeting today at 3 p.m. (BST) to discuss the next steps. A proposed international investigation will be approved only if all 15 council matters agree. The first duty will be to get investigators to the crash scene in the middle of the war zone.