Britain said on Saturday that a range of further sanctions were available for use against Russia following the downing of a Malaysian aircraft, and the country's defence minister urged Moscow to "get out of Ukraine."

"There's a range of other sanctions available, cutting off more links with Russia. He (Russian President Vladimir Putin) needs to trade with the West and relies on the City of London," Defence Minister Michael Fallon told the Mail on Sunday in an article published on the newspaper's website late on Saturday.

"If Russia is the principal culprit, we can take further action against them and make it clear this kind of sponsored war is completely unacceptable," he said.

"It is sponsored terrorism as far as people of east Ukraine are concerned. We don't know if somebody said, 'let's bring down a civil airliner, wherever it's from', - but we need to find out."

Earlier Britain said that the European Union will have to re-evaluate its approach to Russia due to evidence that Ukrainian separatists downed the aircraft, which had 298 passengers aboard, of whom 10 were Britons.

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