All this excitement over recent Russian public diplomacy on Syria is a bit odd to those of us who have been following that diplomacy strategy for over a decade. That Vladimir Putin chose to write an op-ed in The New York Times this week is not at all shocking. It is part of a broader pattern of Russian outreach that began in 2001.

With the Russian proposal for Bashar al-Assad to allow the international community to take control of his chemical weapons stockpile, the Obama administration happily claimed that coercive diplomacy worked. The details of such transfer remain complicated, and it’s certainly possible that ultimately there will be no actual transit of the weapons.

Something got lost in translation between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday - and it served to illustrate the level of distrust in U.S.-Russian relations. It happened when the two diplomats delivered opening statements before their high-stakes talks about how to inventory and dismantle Syria's chemical weapons.

In a first-of-its kind arrangement, the editors of Russian newspaper Pravda have tentatively agreed to publish a column by Sen. John McCain that will attack the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The agreement comes one day after Putin criticized the United States in a widely-read column in The New York Times.

Putin is known for the love of strong language and a questionable, if not inappropriate, sense of humor. This has not changed over his nearly 15 years in power. Russia’s head of state ascended to the presidency in 1999-2000 famously promising to “waste terrorists in the out house, ” and most recently dismissed Assad’s chemical attack claims as “utter nonsense,” raising some eyebrows in the West.

Finding that his strategy of shirtless horseback diplomacy was proving ineffective, Russian President Vladimir Putin instead decided to appeal to the American people directly—with words—in our biggest newspaper today. It’s a nice article—refreshingly not-strongman-ish, pleasantly nostalgic. (Remember that time we beat the Nazis together? Putin does.)

The New York Times op-ed that has much of the country — including Washington — abuzz on Thursday was placed there by Ketchum, a public-relations giant with a long history of dealings with the Russian government. A spokeswoman for Ketchum confirmed a report from BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray that the firm submitted Russian President Vladimir Putin's piece to the Times, and that Putin himself wrote the op-ed.

Today, Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed about Syria in the New York Times. The piece was placed by the public-relations giant Ketchum, Buzzfeed reported. On Nov. 16, 2012, we explored how Ketchum placed pro-Russia op-eds in American publications by businesspeople and others without disclosing the role of the Russian government. Ketchum's latest public filing says it was paid $1.9 million by Russia for the six-month period ending May 31, 2013. It received another $3.7 million for its work for Russian energy giant Gazprom over the same period. Here is our original report.