Russian President Vladimir Putin was cooperative and constructive when asked for his help in allowing investigators access to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Saturday.

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.