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A video purporting to reveal the moment Russian-backed rebels discovered they had mistakenly shot down a passenger jet was today seized on as growing evidence over who is to blame for the horrific mass killings.

The footage, too graphic to be shown in full, was released by Ukraine’s security service as the macabre task started of finding and retrieving hundreds of bodies from the vast crash site in the east of the country.

At first a military vehicle, said to be equipped with Russian-made Buk missiles, is seen rolling down a road and then a compilation of voice recordings starts with a man allegedly called I Bezler, a rebel group commander, boasting to a Russian military intelligence chief about hitting an aircraft.

“We have just shot down a plane,” says ‘Bes’.

A man alleged to be Vasyl Mykolaiovych Geranin, a Colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, is then quoted as saying: “Pilots? Where are the pilots?”

Bes responds: “Set off to search for the shot down plane...A plume of smoke is visible.”

In the video, whose authenticity could not be verified, two alleged separatist rebels - called Major and Grek - can then be heard talking and realising the victims are civilians.

Major: “The plane broke into pieces in the air... There is the first two-hundreth (dead)...It’s a civilian.

Grek: “How are things going there?”

Major: “Well, we are 100 per cent sure that is was a civilian plane.”

Grek: “Are there a lot of people?”

Major: “F**k! the debris was falling straight into the yards.”

Grek: “What plane is that?”

Major: “I haven’t got close to the main wreckage. Now I’m nearby the place where first bodies started falling.”

Major (cont): Here are remnants of internal brackets, chairs, bodies...”

Grek: “Are there any weapons?”

Major: Nothing at all. Civilian belongings, medical scraps, towels, toilet paper.”

A third exchange then purports to include Cossack military leader Mykola Kozitsyn and an unnamed militant telling him of “a sea of bodies of women and children” being found and that debris had “Malaysian Airlines” on it.

Kozitsyn is alleged to have replied: “Well then it was bringing spies. Why the hell were they flying? This is war going on.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to Nato Ihor Dolhov told the BBC: “We intercepted and distributed scripts of phone calls from separatists to Moscow. This exchange by phone of information confirms that separatists are responsible and involved.”

The clumsily-put-together video was swiftly dismissed as not genuine by Sergey Kavtaradze, a special representative of the Donetsk People’s Republic leader.

Experts, though, say it would have been difficult to fake so quickly.

Separatist leader Igor Strelkov is also reported to have boasted on a social networking website that his group had shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane - at around the time that the airliner, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, fell from the skie.

But the prime Minister of breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Boroday, blamed the Ukranian authorities.

Emergency workers were combing the wreckage of Flight MH17 - strewn over a large area of separatist-hold Donetsk region - under the eye of well armed pro-Kremlin militias who control the territory.

Ukraine plane crash - pictures 22 show all Ukraine plane crash - pictures 1/22 Debris inspection Ukrainian workers at the chaotic crash site near the Russian border 2/22 Remembrance Some locals left flowers and soft toys on the ground at the main crash site 3/22 Stacked bodies Officials from the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe covere their noses from the stench 4/22 Rebel control Armed separatists patrol the scene near the train carriages where dead bodies were stacked 5/22 Debris Huge chunks of the plane remain untouched at the site Getty Images 6/22 Deadly crash Debris of the Boeing 777, Malaysia Arilines flight MH17 which crashed in Ukraine (AFP) 7/22 Devastation The wreckage of MH17 near the town of Shaktarsk, in east Ukraine (AFP) 8/22 Evidence? A still from a video clip which purportedly depicts a missile launcher being driven into position by Russian separatists 9/22 Shocking scenes A woman with a child walk past the crash site (AFP) 10/22 Crash scene The aftermath of the crash showing the plane's wreckage (Reuters) 11/22 Carnage Armed pro-Russian separatists stand at the crash site (Picture: REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev) 12/22 Debris An official surveys the wreckage at the scene (Picture: Reuters) 13/22 Shattered lives Passengers' passports lie on the ground at the site 14/22 Wreckage Footage from nearby showed plumes of smoke emerging from the crashed plane (Picture: Sky News) 15/22 Plane wreckage Officials survey the scene after the crash (Reuters) 16/22 Tragedy Flight information screens at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang following the crash (AFP) 17/22 Grief A family member as she receives the news of the ill-fated flight MH17 in Kuala Lumpur (Photo by Rahman Roslan/Getty Images) 18/22 Tributes People lay flowers in front of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kiev (Picture: Getty) 19/22 Crash scene The aftermath of the crash (Reuters) 20/22 Aftermath Debris from the plane after it crashed in eastern Ukraine (Reuters) 21/22 Debris The crash site near the Russian border (Reuters) 22/22 Malaysia Airlines A file image of one of the airline's planes 1/22 Debris inspection Ukrainian workers at the chaotic crash site near the Russian border 2/22 Remembrance Some locals left flowers and soft toys on the ground at the main crash site 3/22 Stacked bodies Officials from the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe covere their noses from the stench 4/22 Rebel control Armed separatists patrol the scene near the train carriages where dead bodies were stacked 5/22 Debris Huge chunks of the plane remain untouched at the site Getty Images 6/22 Deadly crash Debris of the Boeing 777, Malaysia Arilines flight MH17 which crashed in Ukraine (AFP) 7/22 Devastation The wreckage of MH17 near the town of Shaktarsk, in east Ukraine (AFP) 8/22 Evidence? A still from a video clip which purportedly depicts a missile launcher being driven into position by Russian separatists 9/22 Shocking scenes A woman with a child walk past the crash site (AFP) 10/22 Crash scene The aftermath of the crash showing the plane's wreckage (Reuters) 11/22 Carnage Armed pro-Russian separatists stand at the crash site (Picture: REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev) 12/22 Debris An official surveys the wreckage at the scene (Picture: Reuters) 13/22 Shattered lives Passengers' passports lie on the ground at the site 14/22 Wreckage Footage from nearby showed plumes of smoke emerging from the crashed plane (Picture: Sky News) 15/22 Plane wreckage Officials survey the scene after the crash (Reuters) 16/22 Tragedy Flight information screens at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang following the crash (AFP) 17/22 Grief A family member as she receives the news of the ill-fated flight MH17 in Kuala Lumpur (Photo by Rahman Roslan/Getty Images) 18/22 Tributes People lay flowers in front of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kiev (Picture: Getty) 19/22 Crash scene The aftermath of the crash (Reuters) 20/22 Aftermath Debris from the plane after it crashed in eastern Ukraine (Reuters) 21/22 Debris The crash site near the Russian border (Reuters) 22/22 Malaysia Airlines A file image of one of the airline's planes

Mutilated corpses and body parts were strewn around the smouldering wreckage of the aircraft, which felt to locals like an “earthquake” as it crashed in a cornfield close to the village of Grabovo near the Russian border.

Shocking new accounts of the carnage emerged today.

“The plane broke up in the air, and the parts and human bodies are lying within a three kilometre area,” said a post by Vsevolod Petrovsky after visiting the scene.

“One body broke a hole in the thin roof of summer terrace in a private house.

“I go further and see a hill made of the cockpit parts. The area is lit. The pilot’s body is in this seat, with seat belt fastened, he is dressed in his clothes.....

“Children’s caps with the Dutch national flag colours. Amazingly, almost all of these things are not destroyed.”

"There was no fire in this part of the plane. The fire was in the back part which is lying not far from Grabovo village."

A local farmer said: "I was herding my cows and heard some buzz.

"I lay on the ground and thinking only that it would not hit me and my cows. Then I looked and saw that something turns sharply and two big wings were flying. Bang. And something explodes. It came from eastern side, from the side of Sokholikha mountain."

The US expressed fears that wreckage could be tampered with amid concerns that the Black Box flight recorders could be taken to Moscow for analysis, even though the crash area is in Ukraine under international law.

Recordings of rebel radio communications, made covertly by the SBU secret services in Ukraine, point, if genuine, to separatist fighters identified as Cossacks - possibly mercenaries - having shot down the aircraft with a surface to air missile, mistaking it for a Ukrainian military transport plane.

Western sources are also checking whether the missile could have been shot from inside Russia, amid Ukrainian claims this week that such military action had begun.

In an uncompromising statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin's said Kiev bore full responsibility for the crash, arguing Ukraine's crackdown on separatist rebels stoked tensions that led to the disaster.

US officials were today seeking to verify the source of the attack, using satellite data and technology that can identify the heat of missile paths.

"We are working through all the analysis," said one official.