Last updated 12:03 16/11/2014
Russian state-controlled TV has broadcast what it calls "sensational" photographs, which it says supported Moscow's theory that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Several commentators who have examined the photographs have described them as forgeries, however.
The photographs, said to be taken by a Western satellite, appear to show a fighter jet firing a missile at a passenger plane over eastern Ukraine where the Malaysian airliner was shot down on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.
Moscow has long said it believed the aircraft was destroyed by a Ukrainian military jet, while Western officials say evidence suggests the plane was hit by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatist rebels.
The photographs were aired on news show Odnako, which said they had been sent to a Russian expert by a man called George Bilt, who had presented himself as a graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
"We have at our disposal sensational photographs presumably made by a foreign spy satellite in the last seconds of the Malaysian Boeing's flight over Ukraine," Channel One presenter Dmitry Borisov said.
"The pictures support that version which has hardly been heard in the West."
Since being aired by Channel One, the photographs have met with widespread scepticism.
Andrei Menshenin, a commentator for independent Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy, called the TV report a "pseudo-sensation", and said the angle of attack indicated by the photographs did not correspond to the location of the damage.
Bellingcat, a British investigative journalism website, described the photographs as "a crude fabrication", highlighting what it said were several inconsistencies, which included signs that the photos had been partly compiled from historical Google Earth imagery dating from 2012.
Also drawing ire online is the fact neither of the aircraft looks as it should. The Ukrainian jet does not match a Su-25, the aircraft the Russians have previously claimed took out the passenger jet.
The MH17 plane depicted appears to be a Boeing 767 rather than a 777, the Malaysia airlines logo is in the wrong place and a near identical image can be sourced when googling "Boeing top view".
Neither the Kremlin nor any of the five countries most affected by the crash, which killed all 298 onboard including 37 Australians, have publicly engaged with the new "photo".
The Russians have long contended the plane crash was the work of the Ukrainian airforce.
"The pictures support that version which has hardly been heard in the West," said Channel One presenter Dmitry Borisov.
"We have at our disposal sensational photographs presumably made by a foreign spy satellite in the last seconds of the Malaysian Boeing's flight over Ukraine."
In July, an opinion poll by the Levada Center polling agency said only three per cent of Russians believed the Malaysian airliner was hit by rebels, with 82 per cent saying it was shot down by the Ukrainian armed forces.
Internationally, many believe the plane was shot out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile deployed from Russian weapons shared with Ukrainian separatist forces as the smaller nation is locked in a civil war.
This theory better fits the known ballistics evidence, which suggests the plane was downed by a surface-to-air missile given the shrapnel damage, rather than an air-to-air missile, which are usually heat-seeking.
Dutch investigators into the crash of MH17 are yet to release a definitive verdict on the cause of the accident, beyond that it was caused by multiple "high-energy objects" such as a missile strike.
- Agencies