MH17: Russian state TV broadcasts crudely fabricated forgery as evidence

[Thabiguy]

Russian state TV has broadcast what it claimed to be a photo of the moment Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet. But many commentators dismissed the image as a "crude fake".

Link to the story: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30064374

The picture has been quickly debunked as a forgery by many sites. Some are quoted directly in the BBC article, other notable ones are listed here:
Metabunk
Bellingcat
WhatHappenedToFlightMH17.com

One major and obvious flaw that the mainstream media don't readily mention (because they assume it would be too difficult for general public to understand, perhaps?) is how HUGE the Photoshopped planes are on the faked picture. They are monstrously, ridiculously gigantic! The purported MH17 appears over 4km (!!} long over the ground below - some 70 times (!) the size the plane would have been in a real satellite image. It even dwarfs the entire landing strip of the Donetsk airport, which can also be seen in the doctored picture (the thin white horizontal line roughly halfway between the 'MH17' and the 'fighter jet').

In light of this, you might be amused by this quote (courtesy of TASS) from Ivan Andriyevsky, the first vice president of the Russian Union of Engineers (emphasis mine):

We see a space shot made from a low orbit. Such photo shots are typically made in air and ground surveillance purposes. Coordinates on the photo hint that it was made by an American or a British satellite. We have thoroughly analyzed this photo to find no signs of fake.

Why would Russian state TV broadcast such an obvious and easily debunkable forgery? Can they get away with it? What do you make of Ivan Andriyevsky's professional opinion? ... Discuss!

 

[catsmate]

Because it's for domestic consumption, where media criticism of Putin's regime is non-existent.

 

[VonKleist]

Still, at least they've got rid of the SU-25 as the alleged perpetrator. Putin fans can stop pushing its performance envelope into sci-fi territory now.

 

[rjh01]

It is very difficult to debunk something you believe in yourself or would gain from if it was proved true. I think this applies in this case.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

As some of the comments on the debunking websites show, the putinist conspiracy theorists already have a perfectly sound explanation: it's all a forgery by the "West". They intentionally made a very crude forgery that would immediately be torn to shreds, with the purpose of tainting all the hard evidence Russia has of MH17 being shot down by an Ukrainian fighter as probably forgeries as well. Plus, they released it at exactly the right moment to embarrass Putin at the G20 summit.

Just why a Kremlin propaganda TV channel would take part in this dastardly western plot is anybody's guess, but I'm sure the putinists will get round to explaining that as well, given some more time.