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But Western defence analysts deride the Russian defence ministry's claim that a Ukrainian Su-25 shot down MH17.
Nick de Larrinaga, European editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, says the idea is "absolute nonsense". The Su-25 is a close air-support aircraft, designed to operate just above ground level, attacking tanks and other vehicles, he says. It's "effectively a flying tank", which doesn't have a pressurised cockpit.
As such, it is not designed to operate at high altitude and shoot down aircraft - which is a major problem for the Russian theory, given that we know MH17 was flying at 33,000ft (10,000m) when it was hit.
This has not stopped the Russian media from continuing to explore the theory. The slogan of the Moscow-based, international news network, Russia Today - "Question More" - neatly encapsulates the Kremlin approach.
Yana Erlashova, one of Russia Today's star reporters, found many witnesses who said they had seen jet fighters.
"I don't push any scenarios or theories, I just report what people say," she told me.
With the help of the Russian Air Force, she staged an extraordinary experiment and demonstrated that the Su-25 is capable of reaching 33,000ft.
Butit turns out that this heavily armoured fighter jet can reach that altitude only by discarding its weapons.
And firing a weapon at 33,000ft would cause it to stall.
What's more Nick de Larrinaga points out the Su-25 is actually slower than a Boeing 777, so it couldn't even have caught up with MH17.
Oh, and it uses small, short-range, heat-seeking missiles, which aren't designed to shoot down distant aircraft.
If that wasn't enough, the Dutch Safety Board found that around 800 pieces of shrapnel had ripped through MH17, clear evidence of the deadly power only a ground-to-air missile could deliver.
The Buk missile has a 70kg (154lb) warhead, which is far more powerful than the warheads on the air-to-air missiles fired from fighter jets.
Who Shot Down MH17?
The Conspiracy Files Episode 8 of 8
When Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew, a storm of conspiracy theories was unleashed across social media.
While the official inquiries have pointed the finger of blame at separatist fighters and their Russian backers,
a host of different theories claim the Ukrainian government,
and even the CIA, were to blame.
With revealing eyewitness testimonies, satellite photographs, wire taps, clandestine videos and expert evidence, Conspiracy Files tries to sort the fact from the fiction.
In a world where the information war fought online can be just as significant as battles on the ground,
this film also analyses the role of the Kremlin in the search for the truth about who shot down MH17.
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