Putin is crazy... WAPO: Russia is harassing U.S. diplomats all over Europe

[DetlefK]

4. About 2 weeks ago, in a political talk-show...

It was a round-table of journalists and editors from various news-sites, newspapers and countries. One of them was from Russia. The topic was the connection between the russian government and sports. Specifically, the topics were the involvement of the russian government in olympic doping and the excuses and encouragement the russian government makes with respect to russian soccer-hooligans.

The Russian countered that this collusion is simple western propaganda and hysteria. "Oh, those evil Russians! Oh, the KGB is involved in this! Oh, the russian government is responsible for all the bad things! You should listen to yourself, this is ridiculous."
(Strangely enough, when another journalist began listing examples, her enthusiasm left her.)

Sure, it could be propaganda.
But when the number of incidents mounts, when the russian government demands that the IOC schedule their surprise-blood-tests 2 weeks in advance, when a russian government-official on camera makes up excuses how russian hooligans just had to beat up people because they were provoked...

At some point, the counter-accusation that this is just western propaganda no longer holds.