Appeal to authority is a propaganda tactic in which propagandists resort to quoting famous people or experts in a particular field to promote messages. Like, if the argument is in parallel with the statement of an authoritative person, then it is true.

Russian propaganda systematically quotes Western pro-Russian politicians or public figures to promote disinformation narratives. Russian propaganda presents the pro-Russian position of an individual as a generalized public opinion in a particular country.

For example, in order to create the illusion that even in the United States, more and more people “support Russia” or “understand Putin”, or “believe in the victorious power of the Russian army”, they use the American former military. One such expert is Colonel Douglas McGregor, ex-advisor of the head of the Pentagon. In 2014, McGregor supported the annexation of Crimea and spoke on RT, where he claimed that the inhabitants of Crimea were Russians, not Ukrainians. From the first day of the full-scale invasion, MacGregor predicted an imminent defeat for Ukraine. At the end of December 2022, Russian media quoted McGregor as saying that “almost nothing will be left of Ukraine” in the near future.

Another expert is Doug Bandow, an American scholar and columnist for The American Conservative. His quotes were used to promote messages about censorship and lies in the Ukrainian information space. In an op-ed, Bandow claimed that the Center for Counteracting Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine had formed a list of “naughty Americans who refuse to dance to the tune of the Zelenskyi and Ukrainian governments” (i.e., a list of pro-Russian experts). To fight with the Ukrainian Center, according to Bandow, the United States should also create a center to counter disinformation. In fact, The American Conservative has also repeatedly published materials in tune with Russian propaganda narratives.

Russian propaganda uses the Polish fake publication Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny (an independent political magazine) both to spread Russian propaganda in Poland and to quote the supposedly Polish publication in the Russian and Ukrainian information spaces. As Polish journalists found out, most of the publications on the website of this publication were literally copied from other portals; thus, the impression of a full-fledged media is formed. The publication's own materials are Russian propaganda and lies. For example, it was this publication that published fabricated statements by American generals that the Poles were drunkards, drug addicts, and thieves. Most of the texts are written in poor Polish, saturated with Russians, there are impossible language constructions in the texts. The editor of the publication, Adam Kaminsky, is a fictitious person. Instead of his photograph, a portrait of the Lithuanian traumatologist Andrius Zhukauskas was used. Among other things, this fake publication was used to promote messages that NATO is “supplying scrap to Ukraine”,that is, old, ineffective weapons, in order to “clean out warehouses” and “recycle old trash”.