Document Claiming Separatists Are Cashing In on Looted MH17 Items Is Likely Fake

This article is from the archive of our partner .

After days of interference, pro-Russian separatists seemed to be making efforts to aid the international community at the crash site of Malaysia Air Flight 17. They turned over back black boxes and have allowed the victims' bodies to taken away and returned to the home countries. Yet, even today, they continued to shoot down Ukrainian fighter planes, and hold strong, militant control over the eastern region of Ukraine.

While this group, which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called a "terrorist" organization, has certainly been implicated in a variety of wrongdoing, a letter circulating online seems to be trying to make them seem even worse than they are. The written order, which claims to be from the desk of Igor Girkin Strelkov, self-proclaimed leader of the Donetsk People's Republic, asks DPR soldiers to return items looted from MH17 to headquarters, where they will be put towards the organization's "defense fund." 

The Letter 

An image of