Russian ‘satellite image’ of MH17 being shot down by fighter jet dismissed as ‘crude fake’

Russian state television produced a “satellite image” that allegedly showed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being shot down by a fighter jet Friday, in what appeared to be a crude fake deliberately released on the eve of the G20 economic summit.

Channel One presented the image, said to have been taken moments before the passenger jet crashed in eastern Ukraine, as a smoking gun that confirmed how MH17 had been downed, killing all 298 people on board on July 17.

“It’s well know that at the [G20] summit in Brisbane, the Australian prime minister [Tony] Abbott has threatened to confront our president about the Malaysian Boeing,” said the presenter, Mikhail Leontyev, who is one of Vladimir Putin’s chief propaganda mouthpieces. “Let’s try to make his task a little easier.”

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