Russian images of Malaysia Flight 17 were altered, report finds

MOSCOW — A group of arms control researchers have determined that two images released by the Russian government, ostensibly to help clarify why a civilian airliner was shot down two years ago, were digitally altered using Photoshop before being posted online.

The finding is hardly the first to debunk important elements of the Russian government’s narrative of who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard, in the worst atrocity of the war in Ukraine.

The Russian presentation asserted that according to our information on the day of the accident, the Ukrainian armed forces deployed three to four artillery battalions of Buk-M1 missiles, and provided two satellite images to support the claim.