The trigger guys had to know it was a commercial airliner. The airspace above 12,000 feet where they were is a designated commercial corridor. Upwards of 55 commercial planes had flown that exact route previously that same day. If you have a world globe handy stretch a string between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur-—it lands right smack on Donetsk. If that’s not enough count the contrails yourself: the 777 makes two. The plane they first claimed they were shooting at leaves four. And their weapon tracking system would have fed them the 33,000 ft. commercial altitude of the MH17 not to mention the commercial heading of the MH17.
You can’t guess what their motivation might have been but it has to lie somewhere stone cold dumbass murdering piece of krap. But they knew.
“The trigger guys had to know it was a commercial airliner.”
Have any reasonable theory on motivation for performing an atrocity against an uninvolved party?
Or how it benefited them?
“The airspace above 12,000 feet where they were is a designated commercial corridor. “
That’s false.
Ukraine had designed the Donetsk/luhansk area a no fly zone below 31,000 feet since their military transport plane was shot down. Though in retrospect it seems common sense to route around it.
“Upwards of 55 commercial planes had flown that exact route previously that same day. “
That’s also false.
55 went North of Crimea west across Ukraine towards Asia.
That’s very different from flying “exactly the same route” directly over the warzone, which is quite a small portion of Ukraine and easy to go around.
9 of the prior malaysian airline flights on this route managed to not overfly the war zone. If it helps you to understand, look at this map: