Is this the moment a rebel stole plane victim's ring? Outrage as picture emerges showing militiaman rifling through MH17 wreckage

Images circulating on Twitter of three rebels handling victims' luggage

One fighter appears holding gold ring possibly taken from a body

Thousands blasted 'inhumane' looting and 'manhandling' of bodies



Some suggest the separatists could have been trying to identify dead

A photograph widely circulating on social media last night purported to show a Russian separatist fighter stealing a ring from a victim of the MH17 crash.

In the picture, which has not been independently verified, three rebels wearing military uniforms appear to be rifling through the wreckage.

A blonde-haired fighter, wearing a black beret, is bent over what looks like wreckage and apparently holding what seems to be a gold ring.



Scroll down for videos

Evidence of looting? The image appears to show a rebel fighter handling a gold ring amid the wreckage

Hunt for clues? A rebel fighter is filmed rifling through the bag of one of the 298 MH17 crash victims



The suggestion is that it could have been found amid a victim’s belongings or even taken from a body.

The image, which appears to have been first tweeted in Russian by the user ‘stabilizec’, was shared thousands of times on Twitter.

There was a furious backlash online with many users voicing their distaste at the picture despite any confirmation of what it showed.



Sean Callaghan from Cheshire called it ‘an appalling act of inhumanity’.



Others, however, said rebels may have been looking for an inscription to identify a body.



The image came as a video given to the BBC showed other pro-Russia fighters emptying out the luggage of victims of the tragedy.



Militiamen tramped over the remains of the aircraft searching for its ‘black box’ flight recorders and other clues minutes after it was shot down.

The footage, which the rebels gave to the BBC, provides fresh evidence that they took away material that could have proved crucial for crash investigators.

Grim cargo: Ukrainian rescue workers remove bagged bodies of the 298 MH17 victims from the village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine where the plane came down. The area is controlled by pro-Russian separatists

Horror: European monitors inspect the morgue train before it pulled out of Torez station heading west

Safety: Emergency workers put on protective gear to handle the victims, many of whom were badly burned

It was not immediately known what the Malaysian team would do with the black boxes, but there was speculation they would pass the boxes on to experts with experience of reading the data

A Malaysian investigator, left, takes a black box as it is handed over by a Donetsk People's Republic official in the city of Donetsk

The militia leader who shot the film, named only as ‘Zhuk’, tried to justify his men’s actions.



‘We looked at their belongings because we were searching for documents. Then we put them in a truck and took them away for sorting,’ he told the BBC.

The controversy comes after leaders blasted pro-Russian rebels working on the site for 'manhandling' the bodies.

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko that his country was 'angry' and 'furious' by reports of bodies being dragged around the site in Grabovo, Donetsk.



'We are already shocked by the news we got today of bodies being dragged around, of the site not being treated properly,' he said.



Ukrainian officials accused pro-Russian separatists of taking bodies from the scene of the crash before emergency services personnel began officially collecting them on Saturday.

Clean-up: Luggage belonging to the victims has finally been collated and loaded into trains to go to Holland

After a storm of criticism over bodies being left in the summer heat for four days, the train has finally departed

However, today Ukrainian officials announced all possible remains had been recovered.

Of the 298 victims, 282 have been moved into a refrigerated train which has finally left Torez, heading west.

Fragments from a further 16 bodies have also been recovered but are badly burned, officials explained.

The remains will be handed to the Netherlands, which, at 192, had the greatest number of fatalities.