Then Russian forces took a step that forced Europe to respond—and revealed Putin’s recklessness. On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying nearly three hundred civilians was shot down over southern Ukraine. It quickly became clear that it had been taken down with a Russian-designed missile by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, who later claimed they had mistaken it for military aircraft. Ultimately, Dutch investigators found that the weapons transfer to the rebels had likely been authorized by Putin himself.
