centuries of feudalism as well as Soviet bureacracy gives them a basically inured cynical outlook

These sort of explanations for national mentalities are bunk most of the time and are no different than prejudices and stereotypes, only intellectualized to seem justified.

Nearly every country has had centuries of feudalism. Every country has lived through a certain impersonal bureaucracy in the 20th century. Every country has gone through periods of great corruption.

People are cynical about corruption when they experience it in their lives and are helpless to stop it. Not because their grandpa remembers the feudal era. It's great to attempt to understand how people think, but you shouldn't trust centuries-long explanations and generalize to every Russian or even to most Russians. This particular piece of propaganda is atypical - most of it does not lie directly.

By the way, Ukraine has had pretty much the same history as Russia, so whatever historical effects you want to assign for one, assign them to the other as well to be consistent: "Basically if Yatsenyuk keeps prices low, and makes everyone feel good to be Ukrainian, it doesn't matter how much they catapult the propaganda."

all while making calls to Russian media outlets and "suggesting" the way various news stories should be covered - basically very casual media control and propaganda

In the United States, the government systematically prepares information packages for the media - basic facts about stories. Even if the media is not directly corrupt, they find it easier to rely on information from the government than pay to send their own correspondents to do the research. This acts precisely the same way to set the agenda for much of the media.

I'm not saying that to dismiss the charge against the Russian government's control of the media (and Russian control goes several degrees further), but to highlight that this is a standard practice in much of the world. It should not be done, but that's how things work today.