Separatist

When:

Lookups spiked on July 17, 2014.

Why:

The downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 by a surface-to-air missile took place in the area of eastern Ukraine that is currently the site of a conflict between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government. It was not immediately clear whether the separatist rebels, the Ukrainian government, or Russia fired the missile.

Separatist means "a member of a group of people who want to form a new country, religion, etc., that is separate from the one they are in now." It is formed from separate and comes from the Latin word that literally means "to prepare apart."