MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/.The missile fragment used as an argument to blame Russia for the MH17 flight disaster over Ukraine in 2014 is clear evidence that the projectile could not have belonged to the Russian armed forces, because all missiles from that year of production had been written off back in 2011, the Russian Defense Ministry told the media on Friday.

"One of the arguments the investigators used to back up their charges that the Russian military might have been involved in the tragedy was a fragment of the Buk missile’s engine demonstrated at a news conference. The serial number unambiguously indicates that the engine was manufactured in the Soviet Union back in 1986," the Defense Ministry said in a statement received by TASS.

"The engine fragment that the Joint Investigation Team demonstrated last Thursday indicates that the cutoff date for keeping those missiles in operation was 2011… After that, all missiles from that year of manufacture were withdrawn from service, written off and scrapped. However, all this unequivocally applies only to Russian air defense units, which received and still receive the necessary weapons in working condition from the sole manufacturer located in Russia," the Defense Ministry emphasized.

The only reason why the Joint Investigation Team remains silent about the origin of the engine from the Buk missile that downed Malaysia’s flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 is the projectile was of Ukrainian origin, the Russian Defense Ministry reports.

"The sole reason why the JIT stays quiet about the origin of the missile engine manufactured in 1986 is the missile more than likely belonged to the Ukrainian armed forces," the Russian Defense Ministry pointed out.