In every organisation, the culture is set at the top - Putin lies to the people, the people lie back - Karma in action
Goes much further back in Russian culture - aka Potemkin Village - but also written about by Solzhenitsyn…
""The lie," wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn "has been incorporated into the state system as the vital link holding everything together, with billions of tiny fasteners, several dozen to each man." If people stopped lying, he asserted, communist rule would break down instantly."
“There is no [Soviet] man who has typed even one page . . . without lying. There is no [Soviet] man who has spoken from a rostrum . . . without lying. There is no [Soviet] man who has spoken into a microphone . . . without lying.”