Australia and Russia have been engaging in a war of words over the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. The rhetoric is of course a minor part of the larger ongoing propaganda war over the way in which the crisis in Ukraine is perceived globally. Still, in addition to sanctions, Russia and Australia have continued to trade some particularly pointed remarks in recent weeks. 

Amid controversy in Russia and Ukraine, a U.S. Department of State scholarship program aims to enhance public diplomacy, beginning in Kansas. Two exchange students, from Russia and Ukraine, arrived Friday afternoon at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport. They arrived on the same flight. Both students have been awarded the prestigious scholarship through the Department of State.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that he will give $19bn in financial aid, for job creation and infrastructure, to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine earlier this year.  He was speaking during a visit to the region in front of members of Russian parliament who called out from their vacation in Moscow and asked to assemble in Crimean city of Yalta.

For the leaders of the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, andSouth Africa), the announcement in July of their agreement to establish a "New Development Bank" (NDB) and a "Contingent Reserve Arrangement" (CRA) was a public-relations coup.

The Ukraine crisis has shown that Russia has been strong in getting its message across to international audiences, a meeting of US international media chiefs concluded, outlining the need for Washington to create a Russian-language TV news channel. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan agency that supervises government-sponsored media, targeting international audiences, met Wednesday to discuss the coverage of the Ukraine crisis. 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi discussed Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin the creation of a Russian industrial hub in Egypt as part of the latest Suez Canal development project.  The visit is also meant to address Cairo's purchase of advanced surface-to-air missiles and membership in a Moscow-led free trade zone, Agence France-Presse reported.

With a theatrical flourish, Russia on Tuesday dispatched hundreds of trucks covered in white tarps and sprinkled with holy water on a mission to deliver aid to a desperate rebel-held zone in eastern Ukraine.  The televised sight of the miles-long convoy sparked a show of indignation from the government in Kiev, which insisted any aid must be delivered by the international Red Cross.

MH17 has left Dutch society in a state of mid-summer anaesthesia. Exactly 25 years after the end of the Cold War, and 20 years after the Srebrenica genocide that left more than 8,000 dead in a UN ‘safe area’ under Dutch command, the shooting down of KLM double tagged Malaysian Airlines MH17 is another defining moment for the Netherlands’ external relations.