The scary thing is that there's no TV or radio channel to tune to or a newspaper to buy that would offer an alternative, truthful take. Even foreign press suspended activities in Russia after the March 4th law that made independent reporting punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Determined people may seek out independent online sources if they can digest that everything they've been told is a lie, but that's an insignificant fraction of the whole population and their activism is mercilessly crushed by security services. The critical majority remains unaware of what the whole world has seen on front pages for the past several weeks and instead lives in a parallel reality where the widely reported bombing of Mariupol's hospital didn't happen, or if it did, they were all Nazis and crisis actors. It's Alex Jones and InfoWars adopted as state religion. Insane.

The U.S. has a nominally free press. There is a wide spectrum. But you will find a significant population that believes Jan 6 was fake. And you will find some who believe it was jovial tailgaters responding to a personal invitation from the President.

People often believe what they want to believe. Repression of the press is not helpful. But it isn't hard to find the truth in Russia. You can find whatever truth you want to find.