Dicono che se ripeti una bugia un milione di volte, diventerà la verità. Putin è molto sull’Ucraina. Tuttavia, i crimini russi in Ucraina sono così selvaggi e brutali che un milione di volte non sarà sufficiente per renderlo anche leggermente assomigliato alla verità.

The problem is that [deceit and lying practically being a cornerstone of the Russians’ identity and character](https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/96536/propaganda-and-the-russian-art-of-lying?srsltid=AfmBOoqtyM0GoFJh60Es9MG9wEUX1vQ0KCJBox0K4t15oSnc6nRN9PFb) is **not** enough for millions of Russophiles and deranged non-Russians worldwide to do anything meaningful about it.

>Propaganda is lying, and as it happens, this is just something that Russians are very familiar with and have cultivated for centuries as an art form under the name *vranyo*.

>The late, Russian-American professor of history, Vadim Medish, who for 30 years taught Russian history and literature at American University in Washington DC, studied “*vranyo*” and how the Russians themselves look upon it and practice their gross brand of lying. **So his take on Russian lying was: “We lie out of necessity. We lie when it’s convenient. And we lie just to keep in shape.”**

>I am by no means saying that all Russians are liars, but I think it’s safe to say that most Russians are familiar with the concept of *vranyo*. A discipline they know as a cross between sports and the arts. The Potiomkin villages is just one of the incarnations of *vranyo –* one of the older and more harmless ones – with a centuries old history. There are tons of other examples from more recent times, of course.

This unforgivable tolerance, if not silent encouragement, of the Russians’ violent deceitfulness stems from these apologists’ and white-knights’ delusional self-flagellation, puerile [whataboutism](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism), and/or reflexive [anti-Westernism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Western_sentiment) (i.e. *West bad, Russia* *~~less bad~~* ***good***).