The pictures in question are "real," but the assertion about whether it is the same man, or where it was taken, are in doubt. The government (and the Times) has corrected that, as per the link provided in your link:
A packet of American briefing materials that was prepared for the Geneva meeting asserts that the photograph was taken in Russia. The same men are also shown in photographs taken in Ukraine. Their appearance in both photographs was presented as evidence of Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine. The packet was later provided by American officials to The New York Times, which included that description of the group photograph in an article and caption that was published on Monday
The Western allegations that Russia has intervened in Ukraine are based on NATO’s analysis of the tactics employed by armed groups in eastern Ukraine; Ukraine’s assertion that it has arrested several Russian intelligence officers; the accounts of local residents and news media reports; and classified information. But the dispute over the group photograph cast a cloud over one particularly vivid and highly publicized piece of evidence.
Maxim Dondyuk, a freelance photographer who was working in Slovyansk principally for the Russian newsmagazine Russian Reporter, said that he had taken the group photograph there and posted it on his Instagram account.
“It was taken in Slovyansk,” he said in a telephone interview. “Nobody asked my permission to use this photograph.”
Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, acknowledged that the assertion that the photograph in the American briefing materials had been taken in Russia was incorrect. But she said that the photograph was included in a “draft version” of a briefing packet and that the information has since been corrected. This photograph, she said, was not among those presented by Mr. Kerry in Geneva.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/world/europe/scrutiny-over-photos-said-to-tie-russia-units-to-ukraine.html?ref=todayspaper
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