Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that they have no evidence linking directly the Russian government with the plane crash in eastern Ukraine. However, they stressed that Russia was responsible for “creating the conditions for shooting down the plane”.

According to international media, officials, who were very careful with their statements, claimed that they did not know who fired the missile or whether any Russians were present at the missile launch. Also, they said that they were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia, although Russia has supplied separatists with weapons.

One senior officer even said that the most likely explanation for why the plane was shot down is that separatists shot it down by mistake, stressing that pro-Russian separatists had previously shot down 12 Ukrainian military aircrafts.

However, as for who fired the missile, one official said “We don’t know a name, we don’t know a rank and we’re not even 100 per cent sure of a nationality,”.