That abstraction layer is correct, I think.

The thing with abstraction layers is: they are made to simplify a context. This makes it easier to understand and to see correlations and processes. It also hides details of the picture.

As far as I know there are people in Russia who work for their own goals. Those bridges don't collapse themselves and it takes someone to derail a train or sabotage a helicopter or provide intelligence about movements.

Yes. Most people just eat the propaganda or at least don't act up to evade repression (if they would care enough to do so otherwise). That's normal human behavior, it's no Russian specialty. Can you think of a current critical situation which would need immediate wide-spread attention, but people tend to ignore it?