Rolf Ivar Skår

Strategist | Geopolitical Analyst | Advocate for Democracy & Global Cooperation.

Norges Handelshøyskole (NHH)  Visit Rjukan

Rjukan, Vestfold og Telemark, Norway 

Oct 27, 2025

Four Western Voices — One Kremlin Narrative

Russian propaganda doesn’t work because Russians believe it.
It works because some Western voices repeat it.

Here are four names that have given Moscow’s talking points a Western accent:

Jeffrey Sachs – reduces the war to “NATO provocation,” ignoring Russia’s own words about destroying Ukrainian statehood.

John Mearsheimer – calls it structural “realism,” but erases moral choice. If everything is inevitable, no one is guilty.

Tucker Carlson – interviews Putin without a single challenge. Freedom of speech used to serve power, not truth.

Douglas Macgregor – predicts Ukraine’s collapse in every interview since 2022. Always wrong. Always viral.

Different backgrounds — same pattern:
➡ Shift blame to the West
➡ Call propaganda “realism”
➡ Replace “capitulation” with “peace talks”

Disinformation rarely lies outright. It just blurs moral lines until people say, “It’s complicated.”

Next time someone shares a “balanced” view from these men, ask:
Who benefits when you believe it?

(Sources: The New Yorker, Vox Ukraine, VOA News, ABC News, The Independent.)

Follow up on this post on four Western voices amplifying Kremlin narratives, I’d like to highlight four more who play a similar role — lending Western legitimacy to Moscow’s storyline.

Glenn Diesen – Norwegian political scientist who frequently portrays Russia as a “victim of the collective West,” while appearing regularly on Russian state media.

Aaron Maté / The Grayzone network – a media ecosystem that consistently reframes Russia’s aggression as “Western interference” and casts Ukraine as a proxy.

Sonja van den Ende – Dutch “independent journalist” who has joined Kremlin-sponsored trips to occupied territories, repeating Moscow’s framing of Ukraine as the aggressor.

Graham Phillips – British video journalist under UK sanctions for pro-Russian propaganda on Ukraine; his YouTube reports echo official Kremlin talking points.