There is no such saying.

The quote, from John McCain, is "Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country".

> There is no such saying.

I mean, there clearly is now because people have been saying it. I was curious about the origin and the first instance I see online is a line from Ed Harris in the 2017 movie Geostorm:

"I'm turning the clock back to 1945, when America was a shining city on a hill, not just a bank disguised as a country."

Though it's certainly possible there were earlier formulations.

That's not what a "saying" is. Googling "bank disguised as a country" reveals a microscopic number of citations. It is not a thing.

The Geostorm quote appears to be just crappy writing, ripping off the famous McCain quote.