Russia shot down MH17 in order to justify an invasion of Ukraine
Shortly after the MH17 crash, the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) declared in a press conference that they believed that Russia actually meant to shoot down Aeroflot Flight 2074, a Russian passenger craft. This would have given the Russians a reason to invade Ukraine officially.
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The Argument
The SBU presentation on August 8th, 2014, outlined the theory that Russia was going to shoot down it’s own passenger flight on July 17 in order to justify an invasion of Ukraine, but instead mistakenly shot down MH17. Russian airline Aeroflot Flight 2074 was set to fly through the Donetsk region of Ukraine on the same day that flight MH17 was flying through. There are two Pervomayske villages in Ukraine, one west of Donetsk and the other East of Donetsk. The MH17 launch site was at the eastern Pervomayske village. The route that the Buk transporters took to get to the launch site seems illogical if they meant to go to the eastern Pervomayske, but would be more logical if their intended destination was the western Pervomayske [1]. Both flights had similar paths, yet if Aeroflot Flight 2074 was shot down, it would have landed in Ukrainian-held territory, giving the Russians just cause to invade Ukraine[2]. Beyond this, The Russian military had been increasing its numbers at the Ukrainian border, seemingly preparing for an invasion[1].
Counter arguments
There are multiple facts that contradict this theory. One of which is that separatist commanders gave direct instructions to go eastward, which has been discovered from intercepted phone conversations. Also, if Russia was going to covertly murder over 200 of their citizens on Aeroflot Flight 2074, they would have been more discrete in their transportation of the Buk missile to the Ukrainian separatists. Instead, the Russians made no attempt to conceal the missile that they were transporting[1].