Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott held a meeting with members of Australia's group investigating the July 17 crash of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, Poroshenko's press service reported on Friday.

The Ukrainian leader said that Kyiv was helping to conduct a transparent international inquiry into the air crash.

"We have been providing any necessary technical equipment and specialists to conduct this investigation," he said.

Poroshenko said that according to preliminary investigative data, the plane had been shot down by a Russian missile.

"Intelligence data suggest that the aircraft was downed by a missile launched from a Buk-M system that was brought from Russia into Donbas along with the crew," he said.

According to Poroshenko, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics should be recognized as terrorist organizations.

The Australian prime minister, for his part, thanked Ukraine for assisting Australian experts involved in this inquiry and suggested that the airplane had been brought down by "militants supported by Russia."

The Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.

A tentative report by the Dutch Safety Board said the plane was in good order but it disintegrated in midair after its fuselage had been hit by a large quantity of objects.