The Australian government has hit three of the men behind the downing of flight MH17 with sanctions and travel bans in a move likely to further inflame tensions with Russia.

All 298 people on board the plane, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, died when a Russian-made missile hit the plane in 2014.

Two Russians and a Ukrainian were convicted of murder last year after a court in the Netherlands found the three men helped procure the surface-to-air missile launcher that shot the plane out of the sky.

The new sanctions imposed by Australia target two of the convicted men — Sergey Dubinskiy and Leonid Kharchenko.

The government has also imposed sanctions on Sergey Muchkaev, a colonel with the Russian Armed Forces and the commander of the anti-aircraft missile brigade that supplied the missile.

The third convicted perpetrator, Igor Girkin, was already sanctioned by Australia in 2014 for supporting separatist activity in eastern Ukraine.

Both Coalition and Labor governments in Australia have thrown their full weight behind the Netherlands-led efforts to secure prosecutions for the crime and to hold Russia responsible for the hundreds of deaths.

The government is likely to frame the latest sanctions as another step towards achieving justice.

Girkin, Dubinskiy and Karchenko were all sentenced to life but they are believed to still be free in Russia, meaning they are unlikely to serve the sentences handed down by the court, nor pay the 16 million euros ($28.8 million) in compensation they were ordered to pay.

International prosecutors earlier this year said they found “strong indications” Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the use of a Russian missile system that shot down the plane.