Investigators concluded Tuesday that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired over war-torn Ukraine, but 15 months after the disaster Russia and the West remain locked in a bitter blame game.

The Dutch-led inquiry did not identify who launched the missile that crashed into the Boeing 777 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.

But Russia, Ukraine and Western nations all seized the moment to step up accusations that the fault for the tragedy lay at someone else's door.

"Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit," the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, told a press conference.

"This warhead fits the kind of missile that is installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system."

The inquiry delineated a 320-square-kilometre (120 square mile) area in eastern Ukraine from which the missile must have been fired.

And while the report did not specify whether it was under the control of pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian forces, the board's chairman Joustra later seemed to suggest it was.

"It's an area where the borders have fluctuated a lot, but it's a territory where the pro-Russian rebels have laid down the law," he told Dutch media after briefing lawmakers.

The much-anticipated report also said it was possible that some on board the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur may have remained conscious during the 90 seconds it took to crash.

- Conspiracy theories -

The White House, which has long accused pro-Russian rebels of being behind the attack, said its "assessment is unchanged -- MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine."

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told AFP the report was a "step closer to the truth" and "undermines completely the conspiracy theories that Russia has trying to put around since this appalling act."

But Moscow reacted angrily saying it had "serious doubts" about the goal of an investigation conducted in the Netherlands, adding it was merely "a justification of accusations that were put forward before."

Hundreds of people, who attended the release of the report at a Dutch air base, were confronted with the eerie reconstruction of the plane's cockpit, composed of recovered wreckage.

Standing in front of the reconstruction, Joustra also hit out at Kiev for not shutting down the airspace above the conflict zone.

On the day that MH17 was blown out of the skies, some 160 commercial flights overflew the area, the inquiry said.

"There was sufficient reason for the Ukrainian authorities to close the air space above the eastern part of their country," Joustra said.

Kiev hit back however that such a conclusion was "groundless" as it had been in the process of "gradually closing all sky corridors of an altitude of 9,750 metres and less."

- Closure for families -

Relatives were visibly shaken after first being privately briefed by Joustra in The Hague.

"They showed us the fragments that were inside the plane," Oehlers said, adding in the room "it was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop."

The downing of MH17 threw the global spotlight back on the uprising in eastern Ukraine and was followed by a toughening of Western sanctions against Russia.

Tuesday's findings were swiftly dismissed by the missile maker Almaz-Antey, which said its tests showed the jet being likely shot down by an outdated version of the BUK missile no longer used by Russia.

Nick de Larrinaga, Europe Editor for IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, queried that argument, telling AFP: "This is not borne out by the evidence, which shows they remained in Russian service and in Russian military stockpiles at the time of the shootdown."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk wasted no time in pointing the finger at Russia.

"I personally have no doubt that this was a planned operation of the Russian special services aimed at downing a civilian aircraft," Yatsenyuk told a cabinet meeting.

The Dutch report makes 11 recommendations, aiming to improve safety for civilian aircraft.

They include that countries involved in a conflict should close their air space in a timely manner, and that stricter rules should be applied by international aviation bodies.

But it has stressed its mandate was not to determine who pulled the trigger, amid a separate criminal probe by Dutch prosecutors.

Malaysia vowed it would seek the prosecution of the "trigger happy criminals" who downed the flight, the second aviation tragedy for the country after the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 in March 2014.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte meanwhile called on Russia to cooperate in the criminal investigation, adding "the priority now is to find and pursue those who are responsible."

Relative Pierre Chardom, who lost his 51-year-old brother in the disaster, told AFP he felt had some "closure on all the uncertainty which I had had until now."

MH17 wreckage reveals horror of plane's last moments
Gilze-Rijen, Netherlands (AFP) Oct 13, 2015 - A partial reconstruction of a Malaysia Airlines jet made of wreckage found strewn across eastern Ukraine told the graphic story Tuesday of its violent last moments after being hit by a surface-to-air missile.

Dutch-led air crash investigators concluded some of the 298 people on board may have been known for up to 90 seconds after the Russian-made BUK missile ripped into the left side of the cockpit that they were about to die.

"The forward section of the aircraft was penetrated by hundreds of high-energy objects coming from the warhead," said the report released Tuesday by the Dutch Safety Board concluding a 15-month investigation.

"As a result of the impact and the subsequent blast, the three crew members in the cockpit were killed immediately and the aeroplane broke up in the air."

The ghostly reconstruction of the Boeing 777 -- shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur -- loomed large over the press conference called to unveil the final report.

Painstakingly reassembled, with the damaged wreckage fitted over a steel and wire mesh frame, the mangled front section of the plane dominated the hangar at a Dutch air base where hundreds had gathered for the report's release.

One moment the passengers were safely reclining in their seats, the next instant they were plunging towards the ground from 33,000 feet (10.1 kilometres), according to the report.

"It cannot be ruled out that some occupants remained conscious for some time during the one to one-and-a-half minute for which the crash lasted," the report said.

The wreckage was put together after being transported back from war-scarred eastern Ukraine by rail and plane to the Gilze-Rijen air force base in the Netherlands.

Journalists allowed a closer look could see numerous holes in the side of the fuselage around the cockpit area, as well as the damaged pilots' seats.

"The total number of high-energy objects (to hit the plane) was well over 800," the board said in its report, concluding it was consistent with that of a detonation by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile.

A tear in the fuselage clearly shows how the front part of the plane was torn off, after which it broke up in the air, the board's chairman Tjibbe Joustra said.

"It's so eerie, looking at the exact spot where a person lost their life," said one Dutch journalist as he stood inside the wreck.

- 'Deafening noise' -

Joustra said that the tail section "probably crashed before the centre section" containing the engines, which "hit the ground upside down and caught fire."

There was a "deafening noise of the impact, abrupt deceleration and acceleration, decompression and mist formation, reduced oxygen levels, extreme cold, powerful airflow ... and objects flying around," the investigators concluded.

Some passengers suffered serious injuries that probably caused their deaths.

"In others, the exposure led to reduced awareness or unconsciousness in a very short space of time," the investigation found.

"It was not possible to ascertain the time of death at which the occupants died; it was established that the impact on the ground was non-survivable," the report added.