So they're saying it wasn't shot down by a SAM? (After that incident, the Russians vehemently denied that it was even possible for a SAM to be the cause of the crash until the Ukrainian government admitted it was an errant SAM).

It's a lie. In '01 it was a matter of a SAM launched at a target drone which was destroyed before it got there, and then locked on to the airliner by mistake. I seriously doubt that the Ukrainian military would A, do that again, or B, all of a sudden do these sort of training drills over something that is an active war zone, close to the border of Russia, and over inhabited major urban centers. Just one of those factors would mean it'd never get clearance.

It's obvious. Who's the only people in that region who's been shooting down everything they can for the last few weeks? Probably those guys.