Per the CIA, the US isn't even on the list of exports for Russia and imports from the US only account for 4% of all imports. Also, since they are a massive oil exporter and we know how oil is treated.

So yes. I would call our sanctions essentially worthless.

Someone's head needs to roll over this. The three sides as I see them:

The speratists don't have the skills to use some of the hardware they've been capturing and are being complete and utter amateurs in their approach to the entire mess (the Ukrainian military being mostly made up of the butt end of a joke does not help), while the Russians have a penchant for escalating things like this to make a point and may have run headlong into a brick wall this time, let's not forget they (well their "predecessor") visually identified an airliner before and shot it down anyway. The Ukrainian government has the absolute least to gain from an incident like this (or from intentionally shooting down a Russian transport if this were to be a mistake).

What I suspect is most likely is a SAM fired from a captured Ukrainian launcher by speratists, or a SAM fired on behalf of the seperatists by Russian forces (possibly acting independently of the chain of command).

Least likely, but still possible, is that the Ukranians did this (and possibly "rebel" forces within the Ukranian military, not like they've been particularly loyal since this all started).

In any case, whatever team committed the act and whoever gave the order need to all be drawn and quartered.

Don't forget that almost all of the Mig's flown over Korea in the 1950's and throughout Africa in the 1970-90 time frame were flown by surrogate Russian and later Cuban pilots. What makes any of us think that surface to air missile systems are any different?

Anyone think the Russians may have actually been operating the system? The fact that they've successfully downed several Ukrainian aircraft recently would lend credence to the argument that the guys running these systems aren't total amateurs.

The earlier shoot downs appeared to involve MANPADs rather than SAMs. Mujahideen used MANPADs in Afghanistan during the 80s, no education required other than "point and click". My dad was a radar operator on a Krug in the 1960s, while that technology was 20 years older than that in the Buk system using a SAM to shoot down anything is not a simple process like using a MANPAD. Someone with some level of knowledge of that specific unit needed to be there just to power it up and acquire, track, and then target the aircraft. Followed by coordinating the launch with the launcher and maintaining a "lock" until impact. These radar guided systems typically just follow the radar beam onto whatever it "paints" for them, so a missile can be redirected after firing and operators can use their judgement to defeat countermeasures a fire and forget missile would follow.

Just realized that today must be the 17th in the US (since it's the 18th here)... Believe TWA800 was 18 years to the day (I AM NOT SAYING IT WAS SHOT DOWN, before that gets flung around). But bizarre coincidence, just like its bizarre for MH to lose two of the three 777s in the last year or so.

Any heavy duty SAM system is very complex and certainly not point and shoot. If the shooters were separatists, they were trained by professionals...said professionals may have still been there, looking over their shoulders.

For you conspiracy theorists, here's one that isn't really far-fetched at all. There might already be a spetznaz team enroute to "clean up" after this mess. I'll be amazed if the shooters ever see the light of day.

My regular IAH-IST-ALA (and return) flight to work takes me over this area...although when I came this time (3weeks ago) we took the long way round. At the time I complained about the extra hour flight time, now Im glad we did!!

One thing about working over here is that I can see the Russian media coverage of this. I wouldnt be all that surprised to see the Russian military roll into the region soon.

The Russian/Kazakh media here is reporting that Putin flew over the area 30mins before this 777 was shot down. Perhaps he was the target?

Malaysian Airlines is the flag carrier for Malaysia, does that status mean this attack could be politically similar to an attack on a Malaysian consulate or embassy?

Of course, the tragic loss of 295 souls is the issue. I'm just thinking out loud if by chance it had been a NATO flag carrier instead, if the response in the coming days/weeks would look different.