One of the Russian president’s less endearing features is that, when confronted with clear evidence of Russian wrong-doing, he simply reverts to bare-faced lies. He lied – when there was clear evidence to the contrary – that there were no Russian troops in Crimea when Moscow orchestrated its illegal annexation. And he continues to lie that Russia had nothing to do with the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, even though all the evidence points to it having been hit by a Russian-built Buk surface-to-air missile.