A team of international prosecutors says it has identified "persons of interest" in the inquiry into who was responsible for downing flight MH17.

A statement from the Dutch-led team said their independent findings so far "point in that same direction", although no suspects were named.

BBC Monitoring

Russia has criticised the Dutch Safety Board findings:

The White House has welcomed the report as an "important milestone in the effort to hold accountable those responsible" for the disaster.

More from Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Henadiy Zubko. Asked why Ukraine had not closed its airspace, he says Kiev observed all recommendations from the International Civil Aviation Organisation and that Ukraine was "gradually closing airspace" up to 9,750 metres (six miles).

He said the government had done all it could to prevent such a tragedy.

(From BBC Monitoring)

A video released by the Dutch Safety Board, external shows where the missile exploded. It says a "sound peak" captured on three microphones in the cockpit was consistent with an explosion.

Fragments of the missile were found in the bodies of crew members inside the cockpit.

Image source, Dutch Safety Board

Image source, Dutch Safety Board

Eduard Basurin, deputy defence minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, has insisted that separatists did not have a Buk missile system at the time MH17 was shot down, Russia's Tass news agency reports. (From BBC Monitoring)

Image source, Reuters

Investigators have rebuilt much of the cockpit of MH17, that bore the brunt of the missile explosion only three metres away. 

Ukraine's own MH17 investigation has reached the same conclusion as the Dutch Safety Board, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Henadiy Zubko has told a news conference. It also found that the missile was fired from the rebel-held town of Snizhne. (From BBC Monitoring)

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, in a press conference, says a number of lessons can be drawn from the MH17 disaster.

Among them, he says, is "better transparency and co-ordination of passenger lists". There was criticism over why it took so long to confirm who was on board the flight when it was hit.

Image source, AP

Despite families saying they were told victims' suffering was "out of the question", the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report says it "cannot be ruled out that some occupants remained conscious for some time during the one to one-and-a-half minutes for which the crash lasted". Nonetheless, the DSB deems it unlikely they were able to comprehend what was happening.The report states that occupants were affected by the missile's impact in different ways, which was partly determined by their location in the airplane when the warhead detonated.

The impact was immediately fatal only to the people in the cockpit.

The Dutch Safety Board has produced a video detailing what it says happened to flight MH17 - you can watch it below.

Dutch PM Mark Rutte says the priority now is "tracing and prosecuting the perpetrators".

He says prosecutors will say more on this later in the day.

Chairman Tjibbe Joustra has just completed his presentation of the Dutch Safety Board's final report on the cause of the flight MH17 crash.Find the full report here., external

Image source, Getty Images

Flight MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and was travelling over the conflict-hit region of eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014 when it came down. Click here to read more on what we know about the events of that day and here for more information about the victims.

Calculations show that the missile was launched somewhere in an area of 320 sq km in eastern Ukraine, Mr Joustra says. However, additional investigations are needed to confirm the launch location.

Mr Joustra's presentation has now finished. He said that one of its conclusions was that states involved in civil conflict must do more to protect civil aviation.