"Yes, it was Russian troops that launched an unprovoked invasion – but it's the West that started the war in Ukraine." That's the long-repeated line spun again this Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in China. Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it, goes the saying. But for Putin, this founding myth story is not a myth at all.

Tried and true Kremlinologists insist that the ex-KGB agent genuinely feels grievance and genuinely believes in greater Russia's manifest destiny – a right to expand steeped in nostalgia and mysticism.

After a summer of chatter about venues and incentives for still hypothetical direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks, we ask about the mindset in Moscow and elsewhere across the 11 time zones of the Russian Federation, and about a traditional NATO leader – the US – whose mixed messages fuel uncertainty over its loyalties and embolden all those in the West who buy Putin's line.

Produced by François Picard, Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.