As part of the CPD Annual Review process, in January we highlighted some of the year’s key public diplomacy moments in our Top 10 List of the most notable stories from 2014.

Launched in 2013, the CPD Annual Review was developed to serve as a guide to understanding the global landscape of public diplomacy, its ebbs and flows, its triumphs and its shortcomings.

President Barack Obama said he wouldn’t decide whether to supply weapons to Ukraine until European leaders exhaust one last diplomatic effort to resolve the conflict there, setting aside for now trans-Atlantic differences on the best way to get Russia to relent.  Mr. Obama announced his decision after a White House meeting Monday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that followed days of sometimes testy exchanges between U.S. and German officials.

Some European leaders are in a full court press to oppose Washington’s potential plan to give lethal aid to the Ukrainian military. The problem is, there has been no decision in Washington, and the Europeans may be fighting against a plan that U.S. President Barack Obama will never approve anyway.

An attempt by Greece to shift the country’s debt narrative away from austerity ran into a wall of inflexibility during a two-day trip to Germany. German officials here on Thursday, like European Central Bank officials the day before in Frankfurt, offered no sign that they considered the recent change of government in Greece to be an opportunity for a fresh start.

The leaders of France and Germany were carrying a new peace initiative to the Ukrainian and Russian capitals Thursday, amid a flurry of high-level diplomacy to end what French President Francois Hollande called a war on Europe's edge.

Actor Zhang Yicheng and actress Kong Yan perform in the drama "Amber", directed by Chinese director Meng Jinghui, at Thalia Theater, in Hamburg, Germany,on Jan 29, 2015.