Searching For The Truth, a documentary produced by CORRECT!V, offers fresh testimonies from military experts, separatist fighters and residents of East Ukraine. 

They have also collected photo, video and satellite evidence to produce a compelling account of how events unfolded on July 17 last year.

Their findings come just one day after pictures emerged of the Ukrainian air force pilot accused by pro-Russian rebels of being the man who shot the plane down.

The German investigative group claims the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was shot down by a Buk surface to air missile launcher operated by the 53rd Russian Air Defense Brigade, Kyiv Post reports.

They say the the armed vehicle entered Ukraine to protect Russian armor that had been vulnerable to aerial attack earlier in the conflict - which erupted in April when Kremlin-backed militants seized several government buildings in the Donbas.

Speaking to CORRECT!V, military experts claimed only specially-trained troops acting as a tight and well-drilled unit could have operated the Buk.

They would have had just seconds, from when they sighted the plane, to switch on their radar and accurately fire the rocket.

Reporters working for the German investigative group travelled to the town of Snizhne in east Ukraine, held by Kremlin-backed separatists.  

Several people they spoke to in the town described sights and sounds consistent with the launch of a Buk missile on the day flight MH17 crashed. 

One witness went further, claiming he had seen the vehicle and then the missile shooting into the sky afterwards.

They said: 'They shot it down. The missile flew from here. We saw it, as it flew. I was in the yard and heard an explosion, a bang. It was a really loud bang. The tiles on my roof shook. 

'Then there was a long sound. And then a very loud explosion: bang, bang. And just as I ran out into the road, the plane began to fall. Down the road, several kilometers from here. And you could see it burn.'

CORRECT!V also interviewed a former SBU officer turned separatist commander, Aleksandr Khodakovskiy, who initially told Reuters his fighters were in possession of a Buk, before retracting his statement.

(dailymail.co.uk)