A similar game (statecraft, manipulation and disinformation)  was played by the Dutch under PM Mark "MH17" Rutte of rightwing VVD party...

The World According to Dutch FM Halbe Zijlstra | Feb.12, 2018 |

Foreign affairs minister Halbe Zijlstra has admitted lying about being at a meeting where Vladimir Putin supposedly set out his plans for a 'Greater Russia'.

Zijlstra claimed that he had overheard the Russian president talking about his expansionist ambitions during a gathering of businesspeople at Putin's dacha in 2006. At the time Zijlstra was working for Shell. But in an interview in the Volkskrant at the weekend he admitted that he had not been at the meeting, but 'borrowed' the anecdote from someone whose identity he wanted to protect.

• Excerpts from the Transcript of a Meeting with Sakhalin Energy Shareholders - Dec. 2006

'I made the decision that this is an important geopolitical story with serious implications,' he said. `I put myself in the story to make sure that the revelations weren't about the person who was actually there. Because that could have had implications for him or his company.'

In his original version of the story, which Zijlstra began relating at VVD party conferences in 2014, he claimed he had been a back room in the dacha when he heard Putin define 'Greater Russia' as 'Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states,' adding that 'Kazakhstan was nice to have'.

Doubts about the veracity of the foreign minister's claims came to light when former senior Shell executive Jeroen van der Veer told the Volkskrant that Zijlstra had not been at the meeting in 2006. Zijlstra admitted he was not present but insisted that the substance of the story was true.

'Sapere aude'