The recent obituary of Nina Ponomareva, a discus thrower who in 1952 became the first Soviet athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, recounts how she later made a foolish mistake. On a trip to London, she was caught shoplifting some hats. To the authorities in Moscow, however, the mistake was not hers. It was all a British “dirty provocation.”

That became the standard prism through which the Soviets viewed any punitive action against them: politically motivated, always a provocation, never justified. And even though the Cold War is long over, President Vladimir Putin remains stuck in the same, snarling defensive crouch in his responses to any accusations of Russian foul play, from the seizure of Crimea to the widespread state-sponsored doping of Russian athletes.

Yet Russia’s reaction to being banned from the Paralympic Games seems particularly outrageous. The Russian team was banned because Mr. Putin’s greed for medals, in the illusion that they cover his authoritarian rule with glory, has led to the systematic doping of athletes, including those for whom competition represents a triumph over physical disabilities.

Announcing the ban earlier this month, Sir Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee and himself a former wheelchair basketball player, was scathing: Russia’s “medals over morals mentality disgusts me.”