(July 17, 2014 at 2:25 pm)Chuck Wrote: I will not reflexively point the finger at Russia. It is not clear to me how this could benefit Russia. There are all sorts of things Russia could do to provoke another crisis in Ukraine without so blantantly blackening its own name by shooting down a third, neutural, country's passenger liner.
It's far more likely to be Russia IMO. The Ukrainian's only have a handful of BUK missiles and to my knowledge aren't really known to have used them that much whereas the Russians have a veritable arsenal of them.
Also, the passenger plane was approaching Russian airspace from the west. It had already flown over Ukrainian airspace for quite some time, it seems more likely to me that the Russian's would have seen this aircraft approaching from Ukrainian airspace, and they've obviously failed to identify it. They've then made the bizarre decision to simply shoot it down after failing to identify it. Seems the most likely outcome to me but I'm no expert.
