Australia reacted quickly following the surface-to-air missile attack that destroyed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur last Thursday, killing all 285 passengers and crew, including 28 Australians and a large number of HIV experts headed for a conference in Melbourne. Prime Minister Tony Abbott swiftly took charge, sending Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to the United Nations and promising diplomats and consular officials to help those connected to the dead and officials, including federal police, to participate in the investigation. The Prime Minister was not reluctant to attribute blame – to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin for his support of Russian rebels in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine, including the provision of the capability to fire the missile, a weapon also widely believed to be Russian.

By Sunday Abbott’s anger had gone cold – as reports came in that the international investigating team had been denied access to the extensive crash site, and he gave a measured and calm response to questions from Fran Kelly in a 17-minute interview aired on ABC TV’s Insiders on Sunday. One question – should Putin still be invited to join the G-20 summit in Brisbane? – was  taken up by the Financial Times giving Australia the highest international profile it has had for some time.

Abbott’s strong anti-Russian stance was subsequently taken up by Britain’s prime minister David Cameron in an article written for Rupert Murdoch’s London Sunday Times. “This is an outrage, made in Moscow”, wrote Cameron who also appeared to point the finger at other EU leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, for inactivity on the building Ukraine crisis prior to the MH plane’s downing. The newspaper’s editor also opined in a leading article that “Putin the pariah must be made to pay for this outrage.”

The rival Sunday newspaper, The Observer, owned by the Guardian, was only slightly less harsh, reporting that the Russian-backed rebels had looted the belongings of corpses, and quoting the Dutch prime minister as saying Putin should be given ‘one last chance’ to explain himself before facing united global action. President Barack Obama, it turns out, was actually on the telephone speaking to Putin when the news of the attack broke; by the weekend he too was condemning Russia. Across the Atlantic the Wall Street Journal was quoting intelligence sources as saying the Russians had moved several missile systems across the border to Russian separatists in Ukraine.

By contrast the Asian press were more circumspect, referring mostly to the attack on the aircraft as a ‘crash’ rather than an attack. In Beijing, the China Daily reported the prime minister sending condolences to the Dutch and Malaysian governments, but not much else. The reporting was less than adequate in many Asian capitals: the exception being the Times of India and the Jakarta Post, the latter with a Q & A on how Malaysian Airlines might repair its tarnished reputation.

Malaysia’s Transport Minister, featured on ABC News 24, tried to rebut criticism that Malaysian Airlines should not have flown over Ukraine’s battle zone – even at over 10,000 metres – by listing other airlines that were on the same flight path. Singapore Airlines was only two minutes in front of MH 17 when it was struck and Virgin Atlantic was not far behind. To its credit Qantas had been playing safe, burning more fuel to avoid the risk, as did US carriers.