Was Putin the target?
Russia's state-controlled television yesterday wheeled out conspiracy theories to explain the Malaysian air crash including one holding that it was a bungled attempt to down President Vladimir Putin's presidential jet.
After Putin said that Ukraine was responsible for the crash, Russian state television focused on several theories that pinned the blame accordingly.
"The aim could have been Plane No. 1," Russia 24 television said, referring to Putin's presidential jet, quoting an Interfax civil aviation source as saying the logo on the Malaysian plane's wing "looks like the Russian tricolour."
To back up the claim, it aired television footage of a hawkishly pro-Nato former Ukraine defence minister, Anatoliy Grytsenko, saying someone should kill Putin.
The president returned to Moscow on Thursday from a tour of Latin America, and his plane and the Malaysian liner both flew over eastern Europe at roughly the same time, Channel One television noted.
Casting doubt on Ukraine's suggestion that the rebels were behind the crash, Channel One stressed that the Kiev authorities "fully control the situation in the air."
It also suggested that Ukraine's announcement of a terrorist attack came suspiciously soon after the event.
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