Vladimir Putin took a terrific beating in the Western media this past week, and one of the recurrent themes was dishonesty. The Russian president is widely said to have lied about the Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over Ukraine, about the recent attack on an aid convoy in Syria, about the Democratic National Committee hack – and those are just his most recent fibs. It wouldn’t be hard to add others. Mr. Putin is so associated with lying that we no longer even bother to explain it. What are his motives? Here’s my list – four that focus on his behavior, background, and beliefs, and a last one that assesses the quality of his leadership.
1. Mr. Putin has a lot to hide. Sure, he could have fessed up about the MH17 shoot-down (as the U.S. did after shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in 1988—eventually paying compensation, expressing regret, and moving on). But doing so would have made it harder to keep lying about the Russian military presence in eastern Ukraine – and Mr. Putin finds it harder to admit the truth about that. His lies are inter-linked.
