[gpm]

The expert they are quoting is a pretty well known figure, who has been saying lots of things often not aligned with media retoric.

To borrow his twitter bio as an introduction

> PhD student @warstudies (Department of War Studies at Kings College). Senior Fellow @FPRI (Foreign Policy Research Institute). Previously @USMC (US Marine Corp), @ColumbiaSIPA (Columbia School of International and Public Affairs), @CentreAST (Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies), and @AlfaFellowship. Focused on Russian defense policy.

To imply that they're just pulling in random people is flat out wrong. This is a person who has been studying Russia from a military standpoint for many years.

[monocasa]

You can nearly always find a qualified individual who already is saying what you want said, just needing a microphone to say it louder or at the right time. That's how expert witnesses tend to work for instance.