Belarus has form in shooting down civil aircraft. Two American balloonists competing in the international Gordon Bennett long-distance gas balloon race were killed in 1995 after their balloon entered Belarus airspace without permission. They were intercepted, identified by a fighter and then shot down. Ignoring the ATC 'suggestion' to divert would be risky, especially since a MiG had supposedly been launched to intercept the flight, not the the crew seems to have known that.