The pro-Russian separatist leader of the region in Ukraine where MH17 was brought down says he "shares the grief" of families affected by the disaster.
Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, has also told villagers in the area where the Malaysia Airlines flight crashed that relatives of passengers killed in the disaster would be assisted in visiting the site.
The "leading scenario" on cause of the crash, according to Dutch investigators, remains that MH17 was hit by a BUK-M1 (a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile) fired from separatist-held territory.
Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was flying over eastern Ukraine en-route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was brought down on July 17 last year. All 298 people aboard the flight, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, were killed.
"We share the grief of the next-of-kin of the dead. We are always ready to welcome any of them to our land," Mr Zakharchenko said, according to a report by the Russian news service Tass published on Thursday.
"They have a possibility to visit this site, we will offer any kind of assistance."
The comments came after an independent Russian newspaper on Thursday published what it claimed was a report by Russian military engineers saying the Boeing 777 was shot down with a Russian-made surface-to-air missile deployed by Ukrainian rather than rebel forces.
The newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, said the report was compiled by a group of anonymous Russian military specialists, including some who worked for a company that produces surface-to-air missiles.
Two Russian-based, independent military experts - Pavel Felgenhauer and Vadim Lukashevich - have questioned the document's credibility.
"I believe this report is a disinformation ploy to shift the blame from the Russian military to the Ukrainian military," Mr Felgenhauer told the BBC.
Novaya Gazeta is well known in Russia for its investigative reporting and a number of its high-profile journalists have been murdered in recent years, including Anna Politkovskaya who was killed in 2006.
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