A team of independent investigators from Britain has determined that Russia's Defense Ministry released doctored satellite photos with falsified dates as evidence to support its claim that Ukrainian government forces shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

The report was released on May 31 by British citizen journalist Eliot Higgins and his website, Bellingcat.

It consists of digital forensic analysis of satellite photos released by the Kremlin four days after the July 2014 crash and later published on the Russian Defense Ministry's official website.

The Bellingcat report concludes that the photographs released by Moscow "were digitally modified using Adobe Photoshop CS5 software."

U.S. and German intelligence sources have said the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory under separatist control.

All 298 people aboard MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed in the crash.

An independent team of Dutch investigators that has visited the crash site will present its findings in October 2015.