Russian media filled with crash conspiracy theories
MOSCOW — An assassination attempt against Russian President Vladimir Putin. A desperate ploy to draw the West into the battle for Ukraine’s east. A botched mission to commit mass murder against Russian citizens.
Russian news consumers are getting plenty of explanations for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which killed 298 people. While they vary wildly in content, all point the finger at Ukraine. None admits the possibility that Russia may bear responsibility.
The story of the airline tragedy that is unfolding for Russians differs starkly from the one people are following in the West. As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told TV viewers that rebels shot down the plane with Russian weaponry, Russians were being fed a diet of scenarios about forces in Ukraine conspiring to commit an atrocity in the skies.
Yekaterina Andreyeva, one of Russia’s most famous TV anchors, delved into one theory hours after news of the crash broke: Putin, travelling home from Brazil, passed along the same flight path as the Malaysian passenger jet less than one hour before it was hit — suggesting an assassination attempt.
“The presidential plane and the Malaysian Boeing crossed paths at the exact point and at the same flight level,” said Andreyeva. “The shape of the plane and the length are absolutely similar, and their colour would appear almost identical at such a distance.”
By Friday morning, the assassination theory was replaced by other scenarios. One focused on the Buk missile launcher that Ukraine says brought down the plane. State-owned Rossiya TV pinned blame on Kyiv by saying the rebels did not own one, while Ukraine recently deployed a Buk launcher to the area. An Associated Press journalist saw a Buk launcher — which rebels have bragged about owning in social media — in rebel-held territory near the crash site hours before the plane was brought down.
Rossiya said the red, white and blue of the Malaysia Airlines logo “resembles the Russian tricolour” — hinting at a Ukrainian attempt to blow up a Russian passenger jet.
Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia’s most-read tabloid, took another tack. It claimed that Ukrainian air traffic controllers redirected the Malaysia Airlines plane to fly directly over the conflict zone, publishing pictures from flight-tracking websites that appeared to show fluctuations in the plane’s route. On Tuesday, the paper appeared to suggest the jetliner was shot down by a Ukrainian military plane with American help: “A Ukrainian attack plane and an American spy satellite were following the fallen Boeing,” a report claimed.
Russia’s media have suggested that Ukrainian authorities orchestrated the downing to make it look like a rebel attack, in hopes it would be the catalyst for luring Western powers into military intervention.
Nationalist politicians are also heating up the tone.
“The fact that the plane fell is an American provocation,” firebrand member of parliament Vladimir Zhirinovsky told Vesti FM radio station. “They always do everything possible to blame Russia.
“It’s possible that there were corpses that were placed ahead of time in the seats of the plane.”
Russian state-controlled television, which is where a majority of Russians get their news, tends to toe the official line, and abrupt changes in language on the air can reflect changes in Kremlin strategy. In June, Putin began soft-pedalling his rhetoric on Ukraine after recognizing May 25 presidential elections, in an apparent attempt to stave off Western sanctions.
After the airline tragedy, Putin led the shift to a more aggressive tone.
“This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine,” he said. “And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy.”