The BUK-M isn't something where "someone was drunk and decided to give a lesson" -- it's the Russian equivalent of a Patriot missile battery, with a platoon-sized crew and several support vehicles (radar and command trucks) needed to fire the thing. Other variants have anti-ballistic missile capability and/or nuclear warheads!
It's quite likely the operators mistook the Boeing 777 for a large Ukrainian military transport aircraft. There are echoes of Iran Air Flight 655 here ...
It's quite likely the operators mistook the Boeing 777 for a large Ukrainian military transport aircraft. There are echoes of Iran Air Flight 655 here ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655