AP has chosen a quite misleading title. If someone just reads the title and skips the article then they’ll get a totally different idea from what the text actually says.
by design
Not sure I agree, body of article seems to track pretty well with headline.
...offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement.
...the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the passenger jet came from Russia.
But the officials said they did not know who fired the missile or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch.
In terms of who fired the missile, "we don't know a name, we don't know a rank and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality,"
The officials said the most likely explanation for why the plane was shot down is that the rebels made a mistake.
Some outlets led with that, others have taken a different approach. The problem is the Obama administration messed up with this briefing, giving Putin a PR boost, such that Ben Rhodes is now out doing damage control.