Workers recover MH17 wreckage in Ukraine, Russian TV blamed Ukraine for disaster

Workers in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine have begun removing the wreckage from the crash site of Malaysia Airline flight MH17, four months after it was shot down killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

The operation is being carried out under the supervision of Dutch investigators and officials from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The recovered fragments are to be loaded onto trains and taken to the government-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The investigation into the cause of the crash is being conducted there and in the Netherlands.

Investigators from the Netherlands heading the probe into the disaster, said it could “take several days.”

"Today the recovery of wreckage from flight MH17 has started. The Dutch Safety Board commissioned the recovery and transportation to the Netherlands of the wreckage as part of the investigation into the cause of the crash of flight MH17," the Dutch experts said.

A rebel official quoted by the AFP news agency said they hoped to finish the operations in the next ten days and that work would start on the largest chunks of fuselage first.

All 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed when it was shot down on 17 July over a rebel-held area. Charred remains of the aircraft are scattered around fields over an area of 20 square kilometres.

Efforts to conduct investigations and recovery operations have been delayed amid continued fighting between government troops and separatist fighters. A truce was agreed in September, but hostilities have raged on.

Ukraine and the west have blamed the downing of the MH17 flight on Russia-backed separatists using a ground-to-air missile.

Russian state television has released a satellite photograph that it claims shows that a Ukrainian fighter jet shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. But the US government dismissed the report, while online commentators described the photos as forgeries.