Sure, but that was accidental. If they could have avoided that shootdown, they would have, and while I have no doubt that a lot of countries were annoyed by them not paying compensation, they were also aware that Russia wasn’t intentionally trying to shoot down an airliner.
If Russia, say, adopted a policy of sending fighters into Poland and firing missiles at any airliners they find in Polish airspace, that’s going to garner a more-unpleasant response.
Downing a civilian aircraft with a SAM battery, or MANPAD, near an active conflict, is galaxies apart from planting explosives on civilian airliners.
And I don’t mean legally speaking, although it is, I mean they aren’t even in the same universe when talking about blowback, politics, military responses, threat management, PR, escalation ladders, etc.
… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17?wprov=sfla1
Sure, but that was accidental. If they could have avoided that shootdown, they would have, and while I have no doubt that a lot of countries were annoyed by them not paying compensation, they were also aware that Russia wasn’t intentionally trying to shoot down an airliner.
If Russia, say, adopted a policy of sending fighters into Poland and firing missiles at any airliners they find in Polish airspace, that’s going to garner a more-unpleasant response.
Putin:
Downing a civilian aircraft with a SAM battery, or MANPAD, near an active conflict, is galaxies apart from planting explosives on civilian airliners.
And I don’t mean legally speaking, although it is, I mean they aren’t even in the same universe when talking about blowback, politics, military responses, threat management, PR, escalation ladders, etc.