Originally Posted by
JanetFlight
IMHO Ukraine was always very weird and dubious regarding civil aviation and other stuff relating aviation. For example during many years before this sad war, Ukraine was the main booster regarding breaking and corrupting sanctions towards Iran, issued by US and UE...We could been taxing on some main Iranian airports, and we could watch outside a vast myriad of exotic Iranian airlines and half of them were painted on the registration field by the famous letters UR-.
Mainly were those famous Maddogs and oldie 737s.
Lots of new Ukrainian airlines created (let's say) last decade and an half, (and some of them ceased to exist after some months) , were exclusively dedicated to lease planes to Iran new airlines. Some basic plane spotting websites could confirm this. Peace 🙏
Your overall line of reasoning is certainly true (I won't discuss the details), though we need to recognize, Ukraine was moving from a state (including its originally more or less dictatorial political system) alike Russia into a Western democracy. This does not happen overnight (Europe developed this state system -on their own- in a couple of centuries), so fall-out and mistakes can be expected.
Though, it is obvious, the Ukraine people elected for the change towards a Western democracy. Which in turn frightened Russia (or better, the Russian rulers), since more and more of their historic Russian companion countries turned away from the Russian state-system, happily joining the Russian-enemy coalition. Mark, that this is not about the Russian state itself, or the Russian people, but specifically the Russian rulers seeing their power-base undermined.
Going back to the 2014 Donbas and the way the downing of the MH17 was treated by the local population (indifference and looting the passenger possessions !), it is clear, that Ukraine, especially the 2014 Donbas area, was certainly more Russian-barbarian alike, than Western civilized. Which in turn explains why the Donbas got its terrorist uprise to "separate" from Ukraine and joining Russia, given the better "match" in mentality.