> One hopes the modern Russian military is less enthusiastic about such things

Given that they have just done it again, I’d bet they have plenty of enthusiasm.

The past couple of times look likely to be legitimate confusion, probably coupled with a lack of care. In the KAL shootdowns, the Soviets intercepted, saw that they were airliners, and shot them down anyway.

Prigozhin was shot down when on a commercial flight wasn’t he?

That was a private jet, and probably a bomb planted on the plane before flight, although it’s hard to say for sure.

> In the KAL shootdowns, the Soviets intercepted, saw that they were airliners, and shot them down anyway.

As I understand the pilot in the KAL 007 shoot down claimed that he visually identified the plane as a Boeing-type airliner years later, but also claimed he did not report that to control because it was not material since such aircraft could be readily converted to intelligence work which was what was the concern for which it was being intercepted. There is no additional support for this, and lots of things the pilot claimed about the incident are inconsistent with the evidence from radar tracks, flight data recorders of the shot down plane, and the records of the Soviet communications relating to the attack, so this particular unverifiable claim probably shouldn't be given much weight.

KAL 902, sure, we know that the pilot identified it as an airliner, tried to convince command not to have it shot down, but then followed the order to shoot it down.

Is there any doubt that the pilot who intercepted KAL007 got a decent look at the plane first? It should have been pretty obviously an airliner as long as it wasn’t miles and miles away.

This also occurred at least once with Canada/US military (but still Korean aircraft) during the panic on September 11, 2001 — an aircraft that was actually just doing normal stuff, very nearly got shot down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_085

I don't know about "nearly got shot down". They were escorted to a different airport and ordered to land, but despite several miscommunications they followed instructions and landed safely.