298 people lost their lives in summer 2014 when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. At the time, the region was the scene of heavy fighting between Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military. In the immediate aftermath of the shoot down, the Russian reaction was telling. Kremlin media outlets, which were operating in close cooperation with Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, initially misreported the MH17 tragedy as the latest in a series of successful anti-aircraft attacks on Ukrainian military aviation. Meanwhile, a gloating post appeared on the social media account of Igor Girkin, a shadowy Russian figure who had become the poster boy of Putin’s war in Ukraine. “We did warn you – do not fly in our sky,” it read.
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(FILES) In this file photo taken on July 20, 2014 a piece of the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 is pictured in a field near the village of Grabove, in the region of Donetsk on July 20, 2014.
