LISTEN: ‘Comically bad CIA impersonators’ plot MH17 crash. Russians believe it - do you?

A Russian newspaper posted an audiotape on its website that purports to reveal two US spies plotting to bring down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine last year.  One hitch: The conversations are so stilted and oddly worded that they have been widely dismissed by native English speakers as obviously fake.

The two men alleged to be Americans, identified by Komsomolskaya Pravda in its Wednesday posting as David Hamilton and David Lloyd Stern, speak with accents and in words and phrases that resemble Russian manners of speaking that have been translated into English and read from a script. The photo of Hamilton used by the newspaper was that of "David V. Hamilton", an advisor with USAID according to a LinkedIn profile.

“Hello. How are the preparations?” the voice identified as Hamilton opens the call said to have been made on June 25, 2014, about three weeks before MH17 was shot out of the sky by what investigators have widely suspected was a Russian-made ground-to-air missile.

LISTEN: Plotters reveal evil plans in "secret recording". Really?

“Everything is according to plan,” answers Stern in British-accented English and in a tone that recalls the sinister, hand-rubbing anticipation of Boris and Natasha in a Cold War-era “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoon.