An Australian journalist had a machinegun pointed at his head during a terrifying run-in with a pro-Russian rebel near the crash site of flight MH17 overnight.

Veteran Channel Nine correspondent Damian Ryan and his news crew were stopped in their vehicle by a pro-Russian separatist soldier about a kilometre from the crash site in eastern Ukraine.

The soldier who held Ryan at gunpoint. Credit:Channel Nine screengrab

In a post on Channel Nine’s website, Ryan describes the soldier as “very erratic”.

“He raised his AK47 and cocked it at our heads, thinking we were Ukraine forces,” he writes.