Last Tuesday brought news that could potentially move the investigation into last year's downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 forward.

Pieces of metal that could be parts of a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system have been found by Dutch prosecutors in eastern Ukraine, near where MH17 crashed on July 17 2014.

The metal pieces were found during a recovery mission and are with the criminal investigation team and the Dutch Safety Board, it was stated in a statement released on Tuesday.

If these pieces are confirmed to be what they are suspected to be, the investigation could actually start resembling what public opinion purported was the cause of the plane's explosion after all - a surface-to-air missile.

If this is proven to be the case, it will be the first time Dutch investigators will have found physical evidence of a specific type of missile system, in this case a Buk surface-to-air system.

They had previously only confirmed that fuselage damage had been shown to be consistent with the impact of "high energy" (fast-moving) missile shrapnel.

Although this would be embarrassing for Russia, it does not place blame at anyone's door as yet.

The investigators stated that, with further investigation and analysis, the parts might be able to reveal what actually brought the plane down, as well as who was responsible.

It was quick to add that a direct "causal connection" is still far down the line of their investigation.

Speculations as to who is responsible for the tragedy still abound, with general consensus being that Russian-backed separatists were responsible as the area was a rebel stronghold and more than a dozen military aircraft had been downed by rebels in the previous few weeks.

Another theory pointed at the Russian military itself, and Russia has also pointed at Ukranian soldiers.

The flight was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. It suddenly exploded over a rebel strong-hold in eastern Ukraine. Sadly, all 298 passengers on board were killed, most of them Dutch or Malaysian.