Putin: Creating External Enemies

I've been ignoring all of the trash talk I've been seeing by Putin about the US in the headlines today, but with the Reuters headline "Putin Says U.S. Wants to Dominate World," something occurred to me.

I don't care what Putin thinks about the US; he's a thug, why should I? However, it was Natan Sharansky, in his book The Case For Democracy, who argued that tyrants in fear societies need to create external enemies to preoccupy the minds of their subjects. Venezuela, the USSR, practically everyone in the Middle East, China, and Cuba have used us as that external enemy for years. Is it possible Putin is just moving one step further down that road to dictatorship where he's creating external enemies to distract Russians from his corrupt government?