MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry has dismissed the opinion of Dutch investigators that the Buk missile that downed a Boeing passenger jet in 2014 belonged to the Russian army.
"The investigators produced an intact piece of the engine casing of a Buk anti-aircraft missile at the press conference as one of their pieces of evidence of the allegedly possible involvement of the Russian Armed Forces in that tragedy," the ministry said.
Judging by the engine's serial number, it was built in the Soviet Union in 1986, it said.
"The service life of the missile whose engine the Dutch commission showed on Thursday expired in 2011, when all of the missiles from that class were decommissioned, removed from the inventory, and assigned for scrapping," the ministry said.
"However, this has to do exclusively with Russian air defense units, which receive the serviceable weapons they require from a single plant situated in Russian territory," it said.