TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine was the main story on the front pages of most newspapers around the world on Friday. Not so in Russia, where the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta led with a story about the eating habits of Russians, relegating the 298 deaths on board MH17 to the bottom of the front page.
Other Russian newspapers led with stories about US sanctions on Russia, including the respected Vedomosti, in what was either a strange editorial decision or a conscious plan to play down an attack that much of the world was already linking to Russia.
State television reported the incident, but claimed Ukrainian army missiles shot down the plane. On Friday, Channel One said the Russian defence ministry had spotted missile radar activity in Ukraine on Thursday. More outlandish theories, such as the idea that the plane's red-white-blue colouring had meant that the Ukrainians mistook it for Vladimir Putin's presidential jet and thus shot it out of the sky, were jettisoned after an initial airing.
The Russian twittersphere was awash with conspiracy theories about Ukrainian or even US involvement in the downing of the plane. The boss of the Kremlin's English-language television channel, Russia Today, wrote on Twitter that she despaired of people jumping to conclusions about what had happened, shortly after retweeting an opinion saying that Ukrainian "freaks" were behind the attack but would attempt to blame pro-Russian rebels.
However, one of the channel's British reporters, Sara Firth, appeared to go off message with a series of disparaging tweets in which she said the channel's reporters were engaged in lies.
In comments that are likely to embarrass the channel, Firth wrote: "We do work for Putin. We are asked on a daily basis if not to totally ignore then to obscure the truth". Shortly afterwards Firth resigned and tweeted that she is "for the truth".
The crisis in Ukraine has polarised opinion in Russia, and many people were angry as the Friday front pages of British newspapers began to circulate on Twitter.
Gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev, in response to the Sun's "Putin's Missile" headline, wrote: "Today's headline of The Sun once again proves how narrow minded people live in the UK. They are better with tits on the cover."
THE GUARDIAN | PRIHANDOKO
