Was flight MH-17 diverted over restricted airspace in East Ukraine and why?

While there are various questions that have already emerged from what was supposed to be Ukraine's "slam dunk" proof confirming Russian rebel involvement in today's MH-17 tragedy, perhaps one just as gaping question emerges when one looks at what is clearly an outlier flight path in today's final, and tragic, departure of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777. Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk. Why is the diversion from the traditional flight path and passage over the highlighted zone a concern? Because as the following map from the WSJ shows this is precisely where the restricted airspace is.

How come the USA was able to "confirm" what has to be a short range and I would guess narrow beam radar signature from the missile system? How do they discriminate between a test and active radar signal? I bet the guys on the ground often test the radar. Maybe there were several tests of missile systems in Ukraine on that day.

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