This was trumpeted by both Western and Eastern-European media… Secessionists hailed it as a tremendous victory, Ukrainian forces were “shamed”, and the West watched on as secessionists did victory laps with their newly-captured armoured vehicles.

This should have been a clear enough sign that the secessionists were committed but not necessarily disciplined troops.

As the story now unfolds, with each side trading accusations (and wild theories like the auto-piloted plane that took off from Amsterdam full of corpses).

The press has been making a shitstorm of this, with politicians only making things worse. But while the western press like to polish political knobs and glamour things up – they are not prone to outright lying about the facts (in general, a few notable exceptions like Fox must be discarded) – something the Russian media has become an expert at.

We can only take everything we hear with a huge grain of salt. Expecting secessionists not to pour through the wreckage and the dead bodies is like telling a bunch of hungry children to “behave” at the table… good luck with that.

Whichever way this ends, the deaths – yes they happened – are unacceptable. No one asked if the ICAO had a risk assessment report in a drawer that should have diverted air traffic from the region, and no one asked how easy it would be to take a modern SAM battery and – without any formal training – target any aircraft at that altitude? There are several questions to be put forward that – when answered – will clear up this “fog of war”.

What do the residents of the eastern part if they has daily bombing and a genocide against them?