Well I was watching CNN Morning News at 6 AM EST and they are running with this story and pictures as being from our State Department. I guess people will believe what they want to believe.
A Tweet from Russia Today
‘Fake’: Russian Defence Min rebuffs US sat image claims
Russia’s Defense Ministry has stated that “fake” satellite images of alleged shelling of Ukraine from Russian territory were created by US counselors “with close links to Ukraine’s Security Council.”
Someone plants "evidence" on social media which gets picked up by some staffer and forwarded on to the ambassador who decides to send it out via twitter, which gets picked up by another staffer and passed along to the Dept spokesman who comments about it in the daily briefing using the usual vague disclaimers. That starts a new round of social media commentary which gets picked up my tabloids and eventually the main stream media.
Hell, I read an account of a briefing given by NATO General Breedlove in which he cited a you-tube video as evidence of Russia shelling Ukraine. We spend $400 million dollars a year on NATO and the top guy is getting his information from you-tube. Unbelievable.