Over the course of six weeks during the height of the Cold War, almost three million Soviets visited an exhibition that celebrated America. American kitchens, American art, American cars, and most especially American capitalism. The American National Exhibition in Moscow was a full-court press to convince the Soviet people of American superiority.

On a recent spring day in Rugodiv auditorium in Narva, a city on Estonia’s eastern border with Russia, 280 children are singing: “This is what I hear/ This is what I see/ This is what I feel/ This is my homeland.” Standing shoulder to shoulder, they all sing in Estonian, a surprise in this Russian enclave of 58,600 on the dividing line between the European Union and the Russian Federation. 

The Russian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Nikolay Udovincheko, says Russian Trade Mission to Nigeria will be reopened to promote trade and economic ties between the two countries. Udovincheko stated this during a courtesy visit by the Managing Director of News Agency of Nigeria, Mr Ima Niboro, to the Russian Embassy on Wednesday in Abuja. The ambassador said the embassy was also working towards opening a cultural centre in Nigeria to promote cultural diplomacy between both countries.

Despite their hardening views on economic ties, neither Brits nor Germans are ready to switch the carrot for the stick just yet when it comes to diplomacy. Only around a third of Brits and a fifth of Germans think that their countries should break off diplomatic relations with Russia. Although this has risen since the Malaysia Airlines crash, it seems that people want their leaders to keep working with their counterparts in the Kremlin.

Fake social media accounts are spreading pro-Chinese propaganda on Twitter, disseminating upbeat news stories about the troubled regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, according to an investigation by advocacy group Free Tibet.

Countries join alliances, or entities such as the European Union, because these groups make the benefits and obligations of membership as unambiguous as anything in international relations can be. For Germany and South Korea, however, relationships with historic allies — NATO and the United States, respectively — appear to be changing before our eyes.

Investigators are still far from an official judgment of what brought down a Malaysia Airlines flight in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew onboard. But the global court of public opinion, the verdict appears to be rendered.

Moscow's reaction to the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 and the latest round of U.S. sanctions reveals signs of disarray over the strategic shift toward confrontation with the West.  Many Russian officials view the rising stakes with trepidation.