Shooting down of Malaysia Airlines plane likely to have significant impact on Ukraine crisis
Analysts question what effect the shooting down of MH17 will have on the Ukraine crisis, but China is likely to remain on the sidelines
The shooting down of a Malaysian commercial airliner over Ukraine could dramatically broaden the Ukrainian crisis, even before it is determined who bears responsibility.
What has been a months-long shooting war between the US-backed government in Kiev and Russian-supported separatists - and a war of words and sanctions between the West and Russia - now includes the deaths of nearly 300 people from a variety of countries.
"This is a new element that nobody expected," said James Collins, a former US ambassador to Russia, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's one of those events ... that can have unpredicted negative or positive consequences."
On the negative side, it marks a clear escalation of both firepower and the willingness to use it that could draw the patrons of both sides into more overt participation on the ground, and more direct confrontation with each other.
Damon Wilson, an expert on Ukraine at the Atlantic Council, said that evidence tying the downing to the separatists, and by extension their Russian backers, would likely fundamentally alter the international community's view of the conflict.
World leaders, including among US allies in Europe, who had seen the conflict as a regional one and been reluctant to turn on Moscow, could be forced to reassess their position, said Wilson, who worked on European policy at the White House between 2007 and 2009. "It's pretty difficult to continue playing that game if you have clear Russian fingerprints on the shooting down of a civilian airliner," he said.