They kind of are. Of course all countries use propaganda, and the US is at least as guilty as most. But Russia has a famous history of issuing a constant strea

They kind of are. Of course all countries use propaganda, and the US is at least as guilty as most. But Russia has a famous history of issuing a constant stream of outright lies. It has a name, маскировка "maskirovka". It goes far past the literal meaning of "camouflage", to the point where a continuous disinformation is used to hide the notion that there might even be such a thing as truth. The idea is to make lying a reflex, in the hope of confusing an enemy into making a mistake. (It also causes your own side to make mistakes. The idea is that the Russian people themselves are used to it, but simply have a somewhat nihilistic approach to any kind of official speech and even unofficial speech.) As I said, every country uses deception. But the Russians really do consider it a cultural trait of its own, meriting its own name. The Wikipedia article doesn't even begin to cover it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_deception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_deception