This is eerily similar to MH17 shoot down over Eastern Ukraine in 2014, especially the the big press conferences with maps denying blame and doctoring of radio recordings.
The difference is when the US shot down Iran Air Flight 655, they at least paid compensation to the families of the Iranian victims. The Soviet government expressed regret over the loss of life, but offered no apology and did not respond to demands for compensation. Instead, the Soviet Union blamed the CIA for this "criminal, provocative act".
It was not until a week later that Moscow admitted the plane had been shot down — but blamed the pilots of the "spy plane" who, they said, knew they were flying over forbidden territory and did not heed the signals of the Soviet interceptors. Some of these claims were later exposed as lies: The world now knows, for instance, that the plane received no warning before the Soviets fired on it. But the Soviet belief that the plane was on a spy mission was probably genuine — "beyond any doubt," according to the December 1983 KGB/Defense Ministry report sent to the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, though it is possible that the KGB and the military deliberately misled the leadership to avoid taking responsibility.
The KAL-007 shoot-down dealt a heavy blow to the Soviet Union’s international image. "It was an act of barbarism," U.S. President Ronald Reagan declared, "born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations." His view was widely shared outside the Soviet bloc. Demonstrations erupted in South Korea and Japan: Protestors carried placards denouncing "massacre by cold-blooded Russians," and burned Soviet flags.
The Soviets’ clumsy and callous handling of the salvage operation further inflamed passions: They barred foreign search vessels from the crash area, and stripped the Japanese patrol boat Tsugaru of weapons before allowing it into the Soviet port of Nevelsk to pick up piles of shoes and random clothing items recovered from the search. In the meantime, wreckage and mangled body parts washed up on the beaches of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
From "1983: The Brink Of Apocalypse" (2007)
