DONETSK, October 5. /TASS/. Investigators from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have found new evidence confirming the launch of a Buk missile that hit the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed over eastern Ukraine in 2014, head of the investigative department of the republic’s General Prosecutor’s Office Roman Belous said on Thursday.

"In light of the new circumstances into the probe of the crash outside Torez, the republic’s General Prosecutor’s Office has reopened proceedings on this criminal case," the Donetsk news agency quoted Belous as saying.

It said, "the investigators have new data, confirming a missile launch from a Buk missile system from the area outside the settlement of Zaroshchinskoye, in the Shakhtersky district, which was controlled by the Ukrainian army at the moment of the crash."

DPR’s chief negotiator at the Minsk talks Denis Pushilin said the republic was interested in an impartial investigation of the plane crash. "We hope that despite the political pressure, the international investigation will demonstrate impartiality and a principled stance in assessing the crash, in establishing the true causes and in pinpointing those responsible for the tragedy that claimed the lives of innocent civilians," Pushilin said.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 passenger airliner en route from the Dutch capital of Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur crashed in the area of hostilities between local militias and Kiev’s government troops in east Ukraine’s Donetsk region in July 2014. All 298 people aboard the airliner died. Most of the air crash victims were Dutch nationals.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), bringing together experts from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, is conducting a criminal investigation into the crash. In September 2016, it issued the results of its probe, claiming that that the missile that brought down the plane was launched from a Buk air defense system near the township of Pervomaiskoye in the south of Snezhnoye, which at that time was under the control of the eastern Ukrainian militias.

The Russian analysis of the primary radar’s data refutes the possibility of a missile launch targeting the Boeing from the area to the east of the crash scene, including from Snezhnoye.