In the finale of the most recent contest, a Ukrainian singer took first prize. The result, which was decided by televoting, seemed as politicized as the winning song: a tragic ballad about the fate of the Crimean Tatars deported under Stalin. Given Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea, it is not a stretch to assume that European audiences were sending Russia a message, rather than choosing a winner purely on artistic merit.

When the Russian singer, who had been favored to win, came in third, Russian politicians cried foul. One member of Parliament, Yelena Drapeko, blamed “an information war” against Russia for the result. Some angry citizens proposed that Russia boycott the next competition, which is to be held in Ukraine.

On this occasion, perhaps, the Russian fury over what was seen as yet another unfair result of yet another unfair competition may have had some basis. But the average Russian learns every day that his country is treated unfairly and has been robbed of its triumphs, whether on battlefields or in sporting arenas. Envious rivals from the West and their agents, who surround and penetrate Russia, are said to be constantly working to deny the country the recognition it deserves.

“Russia’s enemies want a weak, sick state,” said President Vladimir V. Putin at a rally in 2007. “They need a disorganized and disoriented society.” He has blamed the West for seeking to undermine Russia ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This paranoid theme has become a recurrent strand in Mr. Putin’s presidential rhetoric. Even victory in World War I “was stolen from the country by those who sowed dissension within Russia,” he said in 2014, at a commemorative event. (He was referring to the Bolsheviks, but his argument was the same — “national betrayal” by Russia’s enemies.)

The problem is that when winning is everything, the ends justify the means. So now, when Russia wins, the rest of the world is suspicious. A doping scandal that originally involved Russian track and field athletes now threatens to tarnish Russia’s much-vaunted victories in the 2014 Winter Olympics, held in the southern city of Sochi. More than a dozen Russian Olympians from the Beijing Games of 2008 also now risk losing their medals thanks to a retrospective doping probe.