The pilot must have had a range of options. Some of them might have risked the shooting of the plane. Others might have stalled, embarassed and/or documented this attack by Belarusian forces.

I had a formative experience regarding the game of chicken years ago. It might look very much off topic at first sight, but please read on and decide for yourself.

When I was in secondary school, bored teenagers repeatedly threatened local school bombings, causing the repeated evacuation of several schools. Never the one I went to school at. I later learned why from my father, a teacher at the school. The school did receive bomb threats just like the others. The school head did warn the police. After a short discussion with them, he firmly and politely informed them that our school would not be evacuated, and that was that. He was - and is, at 87- a quiet and soft spoken man, a well respected member of society, but definitely not afraid of a game of chicken.

I think your example is very apropos, but people won't just go voluntarily "die on a hill" without support.

My guess would be that the gentleman running the school in your example was widely respected and had a solid relationship with his appointing authority (school board, upstream executive, etc) -- they had his back.

Does Ryanair offer that type of confidence to pilots as commanders of their aircraft?