The notion of conspiracy has entered much academic and journalistic writing about Russia, through a popular perception that Putin is pulling all the strings, controlling events domestic and foreign.
So strong is this prejudice that even Russia's doping problem is attributed to the President's machinations.
On 1 August, The Sunday Times and documentary maker Hajo Seppelt broke the latest in a series of stories pointing to widespread doping in top international sport. This particular report, based on a leaked dataset of 12,000 blood tests, suggests a third of athletes who won medals in endurance events at major athletics championships from 2001 to 2012 had registered abnormal blood values. Of the 800 athletes deemed suspicious, more than half (415) were Russian citizens.
