At the time of writing it still isn't 100-percent clear who is responsible for destroying the Malaysian passenger jet MH17 over the separatist-controlled region in eastern Ukraine. We urgently need an independent, international investigation to do find that out.
But all the indications so far suggest that separatists supported by Russia shot down the plane. Not only have separatists been responsible for all the planes shot down in the combat zone so far, they also admitted that for a few days now they have possessed the Buk air defense system necessary to hit a plane flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet).
Even more revealing, Igor Strelkov, separatist leader and ex-officer in the Russian secret service, boasted on social media shortly after the MH17 crash that his militia had shot down another Ukrainian Antonov AN-26 military plane. But there is no evidence of such an incident, which leads one to suspect that the separatists mistook Malaysian Airlines' Boeing 777 for the Ukrainian military aircraft.