THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Netherlands told Moscow on Friday it will hold the Russian state legally responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014, after investigators concluded that a Russian army missile system was used in the attack. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: Dutch police officer Wilbert Paulissen, head of the National Crime Squad, is pictured next to a damaged missile as he presents interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo 
 
 MH17 was shot down over territory held by pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine as it flew from Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people onboard, roughly two-thirds of them Dutch. 
 
 A team of international investigators said on Thursday that the “Buk” missile system used to bring down the passenger plane came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the western Russian city of Kursk. 
 
 “It is the first time the finger points to one specific country,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting. “We are holding Russia responsible for their role in the deployment of the Buk rocket system.” 
 
 The diplomatic escalation comes at a time when relations between Western powers and Russia have reached their lowest point in decades. 
 
 “Russia didn’t cooperate with the international legal requests in relation to the investigation,” Rutte said, referring to the probe carried out by prosecutors from Australia, Malaysia, Belgium, Ukraine and the Netherlands. 
 
 The Netherlands and Australia informed Moscow that it expects Russia to now provide full assistance to the investigation, which is in the final stage of identifying perpetrators to be tried under Dutch law. 
 
 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington supported the decisions by the Netherlands and Australia “to hold Russia to account.” 
 
 FILE PHOTO: A damaged missile is displayed during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine who present interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo 
 
 “It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH-17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign,” she said. 
 
 Russia has always denied any involvement, and said on Thursday none of its missile launchers had ever entered Ukraine, despite photographic evidence presented by prosecutors. 
 
 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday his Dutch counterpart had been unable to provide evidence of Russia’s involvement in the crash, the Russian TASS news agency reported. 
 
 Rutte declined to specify what steps would follow if Moscow continued to fail to cooperate. The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, was quoted by the TASS Russian news agency as saying on Friday that Russia was prepared for everything, including new sanctions. 
 
 Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the Netherlands and Australia would seek unspecified financial damages. 
 
 Blok said that attempts to hold Russia responsible for the plane’s downing under international law would be a different, parallel process from the ongoing investigation by prosecutors seeking to establish individual criminal responsibility. 
 
 Russia is already under U.S. and European sanctions over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. More recently, dozens of countries have expelled Russian diplomats in solidarity with Britain which accused Moscow of using a nerve agent to poison an ex-spy and his daughter in an English city in March. 
 
 The United States has tightened sanctions this year after accusing Russia of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Russia denies all of the Western accusations against it and says it is the target of a propaganda campaign. ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption The remains of the Boeing 777, photographed at its crash site in 2014 
 
 Australia and the Netherlands say they are holding Russia responsible for downing a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet in 2014. 
 
 All 298 people on board MH17, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, died when it was shot down over rebel-held territory in Ukraine. 
 
 On Thursday, Dutch-led international investigators concluded that the missile belonged to a Russian brigade. 
 
 Russia has denied any involvement in the plane's destruction. 
 
 Moscow's defence ministry said it "rejects the version of the Dutch investigators". It has previously insisted that none of its weapons were used to bring down MH17. 
 
 The team of international investigators, however, found that "all the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces". It was fired from rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. 
 
 When it hit the Malaysia Airlines plane, it killed 193 Dutch nationals, 43 people from Malaysia, and 27 from Australia. Other victims came from countries including Indonesia, the UK, Belgium, Germany and the Philippines. 
 
 What is Russia being accused of? 
 
 The Netherlands and Australia say it violated international law. 
 
 The decision was announced in a statement from the Dutch government and by Australia's foreign minister Julie Bishop. 
 
 "On the basis of the [joint international team's] conclusions, the Netherlands and Australia are now convinced that Russia is responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation that was used to down MH17," Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said. 
 
 "The government is now taking the next step by formally holding Russia accountable." 
 
 The statement added, however, that holding a nation state responsible for a breach of international law would involve "a complex legal process". 
 
 "We call on Russia to accept its responsibility and cooperate fully with the process to establish the truth and achieve justice for the victims of flight MH17 and their next of kin," Mr Blok said. 
 
 On the Australian side, Ms Bishop wrote: "The only conclusion we can reasonably now draw is that Russia was directly involved in the downing of MH17."= 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption A damaged missile is shown by the joint investigators at a press conference on Thursday 
 
 Australia and the Netherlands have asked Russia to enter talks as a first step, but held out the prospect of taking the case to an international court. 
 
 The EU, US, Nato and the UK added their own calls for Russia to accept responsibility for the incident. 
 
 Analysis: No easy options 
 
 Dr Sergey Vasiliev, Assistant Professor of Public International Law, Leiden University 
 
 There are several legal routes and steps the Dutch and Australian governments could take - but none are going to be easy. 
 
 The first would be to try and negotiate a solution diplomatically, which could take the form of an acknowledgment of responsibility and apology, full inquiry and disclosure, domestic criminal proceedings against those responsible, and compensation to the families of victims. 
 
 This is a preferable, quicker, option - but Russia will most likely continue denying its involvement in, and responsibility for, the downing of MH17 considering its conduct during the almost four years since. 
 
 Admitting responsibility would make denying support of rebels in the region impossible. 
 
 For similar reasons, any other modalities of dispute settlement which would require Russia's consent have zero prospect of success. 
 
 The Netherlands and Australia could then resort to the more formal means of dispute settlement, such as initiating a case against Russia before the International Court of Justice, although jurisdictional bases for the potential case are quite narrow and limited to civil aviation conventions to which both applicant and respondent states are parties. 
 
 The Netherlands could also file an inter-state application with the European Court of Human Rights against Russia. 
 
 But whatever legal avenue is taken, a shorter path to accountability would seem rather to lie in the political domain. 
 
 What did the investigation find? 
 
 Investigators said the plane was downed by a Russian-made Buk missile, supplied by the country's 53rd anti-aircraft brigade in Kursk. 
 
 Flight MH17 left Amsterdam on 17 July 2014, at a time when conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces was at its peak. 
 
 MH17's high-altitude flight path was thought to be safe, despite warnings about the rebels' missile capability. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Investigators said they had evidence of the route taken by a Russian missile convoy 
 
 Some 50km (30 miles) from the border between Russia and Ukraine, air traffic control lost contact with MH17. 
 
 It soon emerged that it had crashed in the Donetsk area - controlled by pro-Russian forces. 
 
 Early on in the probe, investigators concluded that a missile exploded extremely close to the passenger plane's nose, puncturing the hull with shrapnel. 
 
 What does Russia say? 
 
 Russia has always insisted it played no part whatsoever in the downing of MH17. 
 
 "Not a single anti-aircraft missile system from the Russian Federation has ever crossed the Russia-Ukraine border," the defence ministry in Moscow said on Thursday. 
 
 But both Ukrainian and US intelligence sources believe the Buk missile system involved was sent into rebel territory by Russia and then moved out again. 
 
 On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the Dutch investigation did not include any Russian participation, but did include Ukrainian representatives. 
 
 "Obviously as we did not have the chance to be a full participant, we don't know how far we can believe the result," he said. 
 
 And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said he had spoken to his Dutch counterpart, drew parallels with the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK. 
 
 "It looks much like the Skripal affair when they said that it was 'highly likely' done by Russians but Scotland Yard immediately said that the investigation is ongoing and will take some time," he told reporters. 
 
 "If our partners [an apparent reference to the Netherlands] decided even in this case of a greatest human tragedy, the death of hundreds of people, to speculate on it for achieving their political goals, I leave it on their conscience." 
 
 Russia had previously blamed a Ukrainian military pilot, Capt Vladyslav Voloshyn, who had flown a series of missions against the Russian-backed separatists. 
 
 Capt Voloshyn apparently killed himself in March. ||||| Holding Russia responsible for its role in the downing of MH17 Joint media release The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Prime Minister 
 
 The Hon Julie Bishop MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs 
 
 The Hon Christian Porter MP, Attorney-General 
 
 The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) yesterday released significant findings that the BUK missile system used to down MH17 belonged to the 53rd Brigade of the Russian army. 
 
 These findings are built on earlier findings that the BUK missile system was taken from Russia to eastern Ukraine and back, immediately after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on 17 July 2014. 
 
 Based on these findings, the only conclusion we can reasonably now draw is that Russia was directly involved in the downing of MH17. 
 
 This evening Australia and the Netherlands notified the Russian Federation that we hold it responsible for its role in the downing. We have requested negotiations to open dialogue around the circumstances leading to the tragic loss of innocent lives. 
 
 The Russian Federation must be held to account for its conduct in the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 298 passengers and crew, including 38 people who called Australia home. 
 
 Holding the Russian Federation responsible under international law is separate, but complementary to, the prosecution of the individual suspects, which is taking place under the Dutch national system.
– "The only conclusion we can reasonably now draw is that Russia was directly involved in the downing of MH17," Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Friday—a day after investigators concluded the missile system used to bring the plane down over eastern Ukraine in 2014 belonged to the Russian military. Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said much the same at a news conference at The Hague, per Reuters, adding that the Netherlands and Australia "call on Russia to accept its responsibility and cooperate fully with the process to establish the truth and achieve justice for the victims." Blok said the two countries would seek compensation from Russia, which they hope to engage in talks before possibly presenting a case to an international court. A statement from the Dutch government, however, noted holding Russia accountable for violating international law would be a "complex legal process," per the BBC. Moscow has denied involvement in the disaster and says it "rejects the version of the Dutch investigators." The plane was shot down over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatist forces.