“On the whole, it seems that burdened by their own oversized ambitions, some members of the current Australian government have completely lost an adequate picture of the developments in Ukraine and around it,” Itar-Tass quotes the ministry statement.

“They keep making absurd statements that the humanitarian convoy to help civilians in the south-east of Ukraine can be used as a pretext for Russia’s ‘armed invasion’ of the neighbouring country,” the ministry said, in a reference to comments made by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop accusing Moscow of using a humanitarian convoy bound for Ukraine as a pretext for invasion

Ms Bishop has also described as "petulant" trade sanctions imposed by Russia on Australian exports last week. Russia imposed the bans on agricultural products in conjunction with similiar bans on US, European Union, Canadian and Norwegian products.

“Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has gone farther than others in making irresponsible innuendoes against our country even though one would think that her position presupposes building bridges between countries, not destroying them,” the Ministry said.

In June, Australia blacklisted 50 Russian business people and 11 businesses following Moscow's annexation of what had been the Ukrainian region of Crimea.