Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov speaks to the media during a press conference, in Moscow, Russia, Monday, September 17, 2018. (Photo: AP) 

MOSCOW, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that it had discovered new proof that the missile downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 over Ukraine belonged to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Nikolai Parshin, chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, presented at a press conference documents related to the missile, parts of which were shown in May by the Dutch-led five-nation joint investigation team (JIT).

The JIT announced on May 24 that the Buk missile that shot down the MH17 flight came from the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Russian army in Kursk and presented the wreckage of the missile found on the crash site.

Parshin said that the numbers on the missile components clearly indicated that it was produced in 1986 by a factory in the Moscow region and then transferred to Ukraine and remained with the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He said that the Russian Defense Ministry made an unprecedented decision to declassify formerly top secret documents registering the production and movement of the missile in question, which were presented at the news conference.

The video footage used by the JIT as evidence of the involvement of the Russian Buk missile system in the downing of the Malaysian flight was falsified, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at the briefing.

He said that highly qualified Russian experts came to this conclusion after a careful study and to prove that, he showed the Russian Defense Ministry's own video pointing out discrepancies in the original footage.

"We expect that this time the JIT will take into account the evidence we presented today and will not doubt its authenticity," Konashenkov said.

The MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board, including 196 Dutch citizens.

In August 2014, authorities from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Ukraine and Malaysia set up the JIT to conduct a criminal investigation into the crash.