Russian MH17 images were faked, says UK journalist

The satellite images that Russia released days after the disaster with flight MH17, were falsified. This is according to British journalist Elliot Hggins' research collective Bellingcat. The Russian Ministry of Defense released these images on July 21st last year during a press conference on the downing of flight MH17. Russia stated that the images show two Ukrainian BUK missile launchers south of the Ukrainian village of Zaroschinskoe - within range of MH17. Research done by Bellingcat has shown that this is not true. The images presented by the Russian Ministry were dated July 14th and July 17th, while they were in fact older images from June 2014. According to Bellingcat, these discrepancies can be seen in publicly available images on Google Earth. An error level analysis of the images also showed that the images had been edited - a BUK missile launcher was removed to make it appear that the launcher was active on July 17th and BUK launchers were added to make it look like they were within range of the Malaysian Airlines flight. Previously Nieuwsuur reported that the radar images Russia released, claiming that they show a fighter jet close to flight MH17, most likely actually showed debris from the airplane after it broke up over Eastern Ukraine. The Bellingcat blog rose to prominence after reporting on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. However, MIT researchers who say they assisted him in his research question his conclusions and methodology used in producing that body of work.