Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says that the leader of the pro-Russian rebels has agreed to hand over both black boxes from Flight 17 to Malaysian investigators who are in Ukraine.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has laid out what he called overwhelming evidence of Russian complicity in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and called rebels’ behaviour "grotesque".

Rebels have recovered the black boxes from downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and will hand them over to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a rebel leader said yesterday.

US and European leaders have called for international investigators to be given full access to the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash site after rebels in eastern Ukraine took control of the recovered bodies.

Artillery fire has killed at least four people in a residential area in eastern Ukraine, spurring more people to flee the besieged city of Donetsk and its suburbs.