You can equip an aircraft with detectors and countermeasures - but it costs money to do so and it means you are hauling them instead of passengers - from what I remember El Al equipped their planes with things like chaff and flare dispensers and missile detectors - but not sure if anyone else has.
And there are things you can do - for one turn away from the missile and hope to outrun it or get out of its range - but you have to be lucky and have someone fire at you at the outside edge of the range envelope to get away with that
Basically the best protection you can give an aircraft like that is being able to overwhelmingly hit back against anyone who would shoot at them - and while we have the capability we dont have the political guts to do so.
For instance I highly doubt they would be taking potshots at airliners if the US launched a bunch of airstrikes against every ammo dump they had on the Ukranian side of the border and took out every tank and APC they had and then said the next time it will be worse.
Sounds like we may be looking at a 1995 event here from the game if Putin doesnt pull his head out of his butt and realize what he has put in motion while there is still time to stop it.
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