"The people have to have the propaganda convert them into someone they hate, so they can hate," Paul said on Friday, during the 2015 YAL National Convention in Washington, DC.

The former Texas congressman said the US is conducting a propaganda campaign aimed at spreading disinformation about issues like the crisis in Ukraine to show Russia as an enemy.

"All of a sudden the Cold War is over, and there's a full explanation of what's going on in Ukraine, and it's not all the Russians' fault, I tell you," Paul said. "But we have to have an enemy to keep on churning this."

The US military-industrial complex does not "deliberately say, well this started a war, but this started some aggravation which ended up in a war much bigger."

Head of the US Special Operations Command General Joseph Votel has described Russia as an "existential threat" to the United States.

Votel told Fox News recently that Russia is trying to "create these frozen conflicts and create situations that are very, very difficult to resolve along their border."