Nobody should be attacked based on the religion, or their ethnicity. Holding an airplane of random people responsible for the actions of a country is terrible, and it's a emotional response.
I guess when your country is committed to a terrible action (Ukraine), you're looking for any scapegoat to make you feel better about yourself.
Russia has a huge security problem if they can't maintain airport sterile zones, on the other hand a bunch of people have just demonstrated their willing to fight, enabled bodied, so that should help their local recruitment efforts for the war...