Kiev: Ukraine said on Wednesday a rebel who organised the trailer carrying the missile that shot down a Malaysian airliner in 2014 had been captured two years ago and was now serving a sentence in Ukraine.

Debris from MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine during a rebellion by Russian-backed separatists, killing all 298 people on board. A Dutch-led team of investigators has blamed Russia for supplying the surface-to-air missile that shot it down.

The incident was the deadliest in a war between Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces that has killed 13,000 people. Major fighting ended with a peace deal in 2015, although deadly clashes still occur.

On the fifth anniversary of the incident, Vitaly Mayakov, an official of Ukraine's SBU security service, said the rebel who organised the trailer that brought the missile into Ukraine was behind bars.