Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered his condolences to the Netherlands’ Prime Minister Mark Rutte over the death of Dutch passengers in a Malaysian airliner crash in Ukraine.

According to the reports, the Boeing airliner, which was carrying 298 people, was en route from the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday when it was reportedly shot down in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Some 173 Dutch citizens were killed in the incident.

During a phone conversation on Friday, the Russian leader stressed that the tragedy of the passenger plane has once again highlighted the need for an “urgent and peaceful settlement” of the Ukrainian crisis, the Kremlin said in a statement.

The Russian president also stressed a “need for a thorough and objective investigation of the air crash.”

Leaders from Russia and Ukraine had earlier accused one another of involvement in the tragic incident.

In televised comments on Friday, Putin said the government of the territory in which the tragedy had happened bears responsibility for it. The Russian leader said the incident would not have occurred if Kiev had not resumed its military operation against the pro-Russian forces in the country’s east.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, however, has said a “terrorist attack” caused the passenger plane to crash.

Pro-Russians in eastern Ukraine have accused Kiev of shooting down the plane. The government of the Lugansk People’s Republic said in a statement that witnesses watching the flight of the Boeing 777 passenger plane saw it being attacked by a battle plane of the Ukrainian forces.

SS