...People here are also heavily influenced by Russian television, which has been beamed into most every house in rebel-controlled territory after separatists took over the television towers in these areas earlier this year.
Even on the day after the crash, the conclusions drawn by people in the village of Grabovo, which was nearly crushed as the plane fell, were beginning to settle into a pattern consistent with the narrative on Russian television that a Ukrainian plane shot down the airliner.
One woman, who had pulled up to a friends house in a small Lada car, was recounting through tears how she had seen the jet crash just yards from her home, when her husband interjected: The rocket came from over there.
She swung around and said: There was no rocket. It was a fighter jet. One hundred percent.
Some theories were particularly strange. A woman in central Snizhne said there was something suspicious about the flight because all the passports were new and been collected in one place, and because most of the bodies were without clothing.
Were they all having sex before the plane came down, said the woman, who identified herself only as Tatyana out of concern for her safety.
The Ivushka market is on the road where Ukrainian intelligence officials say the Buk moved. Lyubov Sherbakova, a clerk there, said she saw so much rebel hardware that even if she had seen a Buk, she would not have been able to distinguish it.
We wave at them all day, she said, referring to rebels heavy machinery.
