Russian doctrine of information warfare seeks to create confusion, distrust and ambiguity about truth. Part of this ideology is to label everything as propaganda, to claim there is no objective truth, that everything is influenced by the funding agent. This allows to claim, that Russian-backed news sources that form an integral part of their information warfare machinery and spread blatant lies, are as legitimate as any other source of information. This allows the state to keep the monopoly of truth which allows for removal of any accountability from government actions. Which perpetuates status quo of power.

There are in fact shades of grey. All journalists are biased by their world-view and of course backers at least fund the ones the views of whom they like. But there is such thing as journalist ethics and not all funders exercise the sort of control over the writers as the fsb does. Not all media is propaganda.

We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.