I think people like this overestimate the importance the Russians attribute to western public opinion. You imagine that that everyone in the Kremlin wakes up in the morning and their first thought is how to bring John from Buttfuckville, AZ and Hans from Bavaria to their side by wooing them into an intricate web of lies an propaganda.

The fact of the matter is that western elites don't care about the opinions of their own electorate. If that would be the case we would live in a radically different world. I think there is even a study about this from an ivy league school.

So, if our own politicians don't care why would a foreign leader care? Hence I've never understood the "Russian disinformation" and "Russian propaganda" narratives. They sure do exist but not at the scale everyone is imagining.

I guess externalising internal contradictions is the easy way out for some people but they quickly forget that their lazyness could drag everyone else into desaster.