Quote Originally Posted by Mark View Post
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28370863

It seems they were in trouble without these incidents http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28370863

You do wonder, if the decision not to avoid this airspace was thus a commercial one? Since other airlines such as British Airways had already chosen not to fly over there.
Thats a tad harsh IMO. Most airlines carried on flying over the area and the Ukrainians only warned them not to fly at or below 30,000 ft as the rebels weren't thought to have SAMs capable of reaching higher altitudes. The Malaysians followed all the directives they were given.

It wouldn't surprise me if the rebels at the missile controls making the decisions were drunk at the time, I doubt discipline is their strong point.

One way of resolving this issue is to classify the rebel group as a terrorist organisation, not hard given that they have downed an airliner and prevented access to the crash site. Russia could then be labelled as a state sponsor of terrorism, easy to prove given the level of communication between Moscow and the rebels. This would pave the way to much stronger sanctions which would not require consensus across the EU and US to implement at each step. That would hit the Russian economy hard.