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 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 a Friday evening 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.
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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.
During the course of the Ukraine crisis Russian state television has
frequently aired reports, sometimes including apparently sensational
evidence, that back the Kremlin's version of events.
In July, an opinion poll by the Levada Center polling agency said
only three percent of Russians believed the Malaysian airliner was
hit by rebels, with 82 percent saying it was shot down by the
Ukrainian armed forces.
The publication of the photos came on the eve of a G20 summit in
Brisbane, where President Vladimir Putin faces strong criticism from
Western leaders for Russia's actions in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Jason Bush; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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