Analysis: How Russia uses Western reporters to launder propaganda
Pearson Sharp, accompanied by four heavily armed Russian soldiers, in a photo posted on Sept. 17, 2025. (Pearson Sharp / X)
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Russia's war propaganda has a broad array of tools – including enticing foreign reporters to help "launder" its narratives for international audiences.
Pearson Sharp, a foreign correspondent for the far-right U.S. outlet One America News Network (OAN), stirred controversy earlier this month after announcing he had been reporting from inside Russia and Russian-occupied Donbas.
His self-styled "independent" coverage closely echoed Russia's longstanding narratives on Ukraine and was promptly amplified by Russian state propaganda and affiliated voices on social media.
Allowing Sharp, who works with an outlet previously endorsed by U.S. President Donald Trump, to cover the war signals Moscow's desire to reach the American public in any way possible.
Keir Giles, a British author and an expert on Russian disinformation, notes that this method is nothing new.
"Naturally, Russia wants to exploit any Westerners who are naive or unscrupulous enough to serve as their propagandists in order both to transmit messages to the outside world and to show to Russian audiences that it is not just Russians that are telling these stories," he told the Kyiv Independent.
Western reporters as propaganda instruments
In a Sept. 17 post on X, Sharp published a photo of himself flanked by four heavily armed Russian soldiers, announcing he had "spent the past week traveling through Donbass in Russia (sic) and visiting the people and cities in the region being ravaged by this pointless war."
Casting himself as an independent observer who relayed only the views of the locals, the OAN reporter stated that the residents assured him they were grateful to Russian President Vladimir Putin for "saving" them from the "Zelensky regime."
Sharp is far from the only self-described "independent journalist" to cover the war from the Russian side of the front while echoing Moscow's narratives.
Brit Graham Phillips, American Patrick Lancaster and German Alina Lipp have done so for years, even since before the outbreak of the full-scale invasion.
These reporters are then given prominent airtime on Russian state media, which presents them as "impartial voices" seeking the truth — a propaganda method described as a "third-party effect" by Alyona Hurkivska, a political scientist at the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Between September 8 and 17, pro-Russian Telegram channels and state media-linked actors amplified 178 posts about the presence of foreign journalists, garnering more than 13.1 million cumulative views, according to the disinformation monitoring team at LetsData.
Depicted as "neutral witnesses exposing alleged Ukrainian crimes," these reporters help Russia bolster its credibility while eroding Western narratives, LetsData analyst Joseph Roche told the Kyiv Independent.
Sharp has already appeared on the Russian propaganda channel RT and state news agency RIA Novosti. TASS, in the meantime, covered his meeting with "U.S. volunteers in the Russian Armed Forces" in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
But on-the-ground reporting serves other purposes beyond rehashing stale claims about Western-backed coups, oppression of Russian speakers, or aggressive NATO.
In a social media post on Sept. 22, Sharp repeatedly underscored "threats" and "hate" from the "pro-Ukraine crowd" over his reporting.
"To engage people, a story needs to incorporate elements of drama and conflict," such as when a journalist is reportedly threatened by pro-Ukrainian voices simply for uncovering the "truth," Hurkivska notes.
What Pearson Sharp says about Ukraine
Ukrainian officials and experts warn that Russian military and security services carefully preselect what foreign reporters can access, including routes, interviewees, and footage.
"Content consumers in Europe or the U.S. may not realize that access to information was restricted and that the report/news piece was staged or edited," says Alina Alieksieieva, the deputy head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation.
This creates a "dangerous illusion of 'neutrality' or 'truthfulness' in a picture favorable to the Kremlin," she adds.
According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Sharp was invited to Russia as part of a press tour organized by Zakhar Prilepin, a Western-sanctioned political figure and military officer who has fought in Ukraine since 2014.
Sharp has vowed that he was free to explore Donbas as he wished, without being paid or instructed whom to speak to. He also declared that he "didn't find a single person who said they were Ukrainian."
"And again, I am not pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine. I'm just a journalist who actually went there and talked to the people who live there," the reporter said.
However, Sharp's past record suggests he is not as impartial on the topic as he maintains.
In March, he published a piece on his personal blog filled with claims regurgitating Russian propaganda.
The reporter presented Russia's sham referendums in Crimea and in occupied eastern Ukraine – held at gunpoint – as "a democratic process" while blaming the war in Ukraine on NATO expansion.'
Alexander Dugin, who openly called for the genocide of Ukrainians, was described by Sharp as a "brilliant Russian philosopher and political analyst" with whom he had the "privilege" to speak last year.
Sharp's summary of the war situation was that "Russia has all the cards" while "Ukraine is crumbling," and that the "United States is sick of bankrolling a manufactured conflict that has nothing to do with us."
The OAN host has also openly backed some of the most outlandish claims, such as that the U.S. operates "secret bioweapons labs" in Ukraine and previously called a Russian airstrike on the Mariupol hospital in 2022 a U.S.-led "false flag."
"When journalists from the opposing camps visit authoritarian regimes, the regimes are aware of the narratives these journalists will promote," Hurkivska told the Kyiv Independent.
Zeroing in on the American public
What sets Sharp apart from other "independent reporters" laundering Russian propaganda is his affiliation with an existing news channel – one endorsed by Trump himself.
Described as an "alternative far-right" news source accused of peddling falsehoods during the 2020 U.S. election, OAN was once pitched by Trump's ally Kari Lake as a "news feed service" provider for state-funded international broadcasters.
Sharp's affiliation underscores Moscow's effort to reach the American audience, particularly Trump's MAGA voter base.
The OAN reporter's view on the war has often followed partisan lines, casting past Democratic presidents as the main culprits.
He has alluded to the Obama administration's responsibility for a "coup" in Ukraine and blamed former President Joe Biden for instigating Russia's full-scale invasion, mirroring Trump's favorite narrative about "Biden's war."
But Giles warns against overestimating the actual impact of Sharp's reporting, noting that it will most likely reach only "ardent enthusiasts who will embrace it within the bubble."
Commenting on OAN, the expert described it as an "outlet that has always been ideological with sympathy with Russia" and as an "obvious" tool for Russia to try and reach the U.S. public.
However, Giles believes that Russian propaganda networks are largely unable to reach broad foreign audiences — and those they reach "are fully aware of what they are looking at."
Note from the author:
Hi, this is Martin Fornusek. I hope you enjoyed this article. At the Kyiv Independent, our team strives to bring you insights into Russian disinformation, propaganda, and its ongoing aggression in Ukraine.
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