Following new developments and global reaction overnight, here is a roundup of what we know about Thursday's crash in the Ukraine

Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash: what we know so far

Death toll

Authorities have updated the death toll to 298 people killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, near the Russian border, to include three infants not counted earlier.

That number includes: 189 Dutch nationals, 44 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine passengers believed to be from the UK, four each from Germany and Belgium, three from the Philippines, one Canadian and one from New Zealand. The nationalities of four passengers have not yet been verified.

A number of the passengers were on their way to an international Aids conference in Melbourne, Australia. Names have not been confirmed but it is believed leading HIV/Aids researchers are among the dead.

Among the 28 Australians killed when the plane came down over eastern Ukraine were members of a family who lost two other relatives when Malaysia Airlines Fight 370 vanished in March.

Two of the British dead were Newcastle United fans going to support their team in a pre-season tour of New Zealand.

World reaction

The United States' ambassador to the United Nations accused Russian-backed separatists of shooting down flight MH17 and said the Kremlin bore responsibility. "Russia must end this war," Samantha Power told the UN Security Council on Friday. She said an SA-11 surface-to-air missile was believed to have hit the Boeing 777.

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said it appeared the plane was shot down by Russian-backed rebels.



The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Ukraine bore responsibility for the crash, according to a Kremlin statement issued early on Friday, but he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down. He later called for the two opposing sides in Ukraine to put down their arms and enter talks.

Ukraine has said it had no missile launchers in the area or lost to Russian-backed rebels. Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, called the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, to express his condolences and to invite Dutch experts to assist in the investigation.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said Russia was responsible for what was happening in Ukraine but there need to be a full investigation before sanctions. UK prime minister David Cameron also said it was too early to know for certain who was to blame.

The Malaysian PM, Najib Razak, said the government of Ukraine had pledged to him a full and independent investigation. He called it “a tragic day in what has already been a tragic year for Malaysia”, referring to the earlier disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

The United Nations security council is to hold an emergency meeting on the Ukraine crisis. A UK-drafted statement calls for “a full, thorough and independent international investigation” into what caused the crash and stresses the need for “all parties to grant immediate access by investigators to the crash site to determine the cause of the incident".



The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, earlier expressed his condolences and said there was “clearly a need for a full and transparent international investigation”.

Crash site

Wreckage and bodies are scattered across miles of rebel-held territory near Ukraine's border with Russia. The site itself is under the control of rebel forces, though around 20 workers from Ukraine's emergency situations ministry and 30 from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have access.

Crash site detail Photograph: /Guim

Harriet Salem at the crash site in Grabovo on Friday morning described it as "even more horrific in daylight. Firefighters fan out across fields marking sites of body parts with poles & white ribbons." Immediately after the crash, she said,



A strong smell of aviation fuel and burnt rubber hung in the air as dozens of pro-Russia separatist fighters milled around to control access to the area in which workers from the emergency services were sifting through the wreckage. Some 10 fire engines remained on the scene as night fell after rushing there to extinguish the many blazes sparked by the crash.

Here is a photograph from Grabovo before dawn.

Harriet Salem (@HarrietSalem) Firefighters work into night at #MH17 crash site as armed rebels patrol area. Locals say they're terrified #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/0KuzlWxMqO

Investigation

Ukraine has invited the aviation authorities from Malaysia, the Netherlands, Boeing, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, European Civil Aviation Conference, Europe's air traffic regulator Eurocontrol, the European Commission and Ukraine's transport safety watchdog.

The black boxes are seen as vital to an investigation into what happened to the Boeing 777. Ukrainian authorities need to secure the wreckage and recover the black box recordings of flight data and voices from the cockpit to make sure the data is not corrupted.

The Donetsk governor, Serhiy Taruta, has accused rebels of complicating the work at the crash site. "They impede the work of international investigators, and hamper the work of Ukrainian specialists at the site of the tragedy," he said.

Airspace



Air safety experts have criticised Malaysia Airlines for flying over Ukraine airspace but the company maintains that the flight path was deemed safe to travel by civil aviation authorities. Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, told a press conference that MH17 was following "the right route on the right path".

The plane was traveling 1,000ft above a no-fly zone. Other airlines have said they either began avoiding the airspace above the troubled region several months ago, or have now joined Malaysia Airlines in diverting all aircraft away from it.

Many airlines avoided Ukraine immediately after the crash, as the flight data map shows below, and Ukraine on Friday closed airspace over the east of the country.

PlaneTalking (@Plane_Talking) A quick look on @flightradar24 and you can see the move away from Ukraine airspace pic.twitter.com/lS3OI5O8Ug

Audio footage

Audio was being circulated on social media, apparently released by Ukrainian security services, purporting to be an intercepted conversation of pro-Russia rebels confirming they had shot down a civilian jet.



The conversation is apparently between a group leader and his superior and suggests that they initially thought they had brought down a military aircraft but later realised their error.

The group leader, "Demon", tells his boss: "A plane has just been shot down. [It was] 'Miner's' group. It crashed outside Enakievo. Our men went to search for and photograph it. It's smouldering."

After his men apparently inspected the crash site, Demon reports back. "Cossacks from the Chernunkhino checkpoint shot down the plane. The plane disintegrated in mid-air … they found the first body. It's a civilian."

He carries on: "I mean. It's definitely a civilian aircraft."