What exactly does anyone in Russia or among the Ukrainian rebels have to gain by shooting down a Malaysian passenger jet filled with mostly Dutch passengers?
Nothing.
This event just demonstrates the incompetence of Putin and his cronies. It is just plain stupid to leave weapons like these in the hands of people who don't know what they're doing and who don't care enough about the lives of innocent people to find out exactly what they are doing before intentionally shooting down what might be (and, in fact, was) a commercial jet.
There isn't any excuse or justification for any of this. Putin is just incompetent.
The Russians who shot down MH-17 justified shooting it down because it was flying over their territory and had spies on it.
There is mounting evidence there were Russians military personnel manning that BUK missile system not just rebels. BUK’s systems detect commercial passenger jets ident pings. How do professionally trained military personnel on that BUK mistakenly shoot down a commercial passenger jet?
Russia’s first response was the Ukrainians shot down MH-17 while trying to shoot down Putin’s plane, but that was quickly proved false. Was this a Russian OP to turn the world against Ukraine by falsely accusing the Ukrainians of shooting down this passenger jet, that has fallen apart on Putin?
Russian GRU was immediately contacted by those responsible for firing that BUK missile to report success of operation, that puts Russian military intel in the loop of this operation.
Why was that BUK quickly transported back across Russian border if it was just an accident by drunken Russian morons?