In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.

1/23

Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).

2/23

Let’s start with the obvious — Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton, the enemy is the US and all of their allies. The way this works is that…
3/23

…whenever Scotty talks about a historical event, he somehow flips it so that the fault falls on the US. And he’s been doing this for a LONG time — he’s conducted over 5000 interviews since 2003 for various radio stations, including his own Antiwar Radio.

4/23

Horton is the editorial director of Antiwar . com — a website that claims to be devoted to “non-interventionism”, but is somehow full of rambles from Kremlin apologists. It’s promoted by John Mearsheimer and Roger Waters, and Scott’s predecessor praised Putin as a “patriot”.
5/23

Scotty is part of the US “Kremlintarian movement” and so-called Mises Caucus, a pro-Kremlin group who hijacked the real Libertarians to help with Trump's re-election. He’s referred to as their “foreign policy guy”.

The group’s led by Angela McArdle:


6/23

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1793260571212517846

Horton’s “anti-war” stance seems to be that countries like Russia can invade other sovereign nations, whereas their victims’ allies should not be able to help in any way because that would “provoke” or “escalate”. This crowd sometimes does condemn barbaric murderers like…

7/23

…Putin & Assad, but then comes the “but”: “BUT here’s how it was actually our own fault and Putin HAD to invade Ukraine because they wanted to integrate into EU/NATO and it was the US who meddled in Ukraine’s domestic issues not Putin”, shifting the blame from the Kremlin.

8/23

In this worldview, 1 bag of low-grade cookies and a phone call between 2 Americans somehow constitute a coup and “provoke” (justify?) a genocidal invasion, whereas the arming&training of separatists and dioxin poisoning of the Kremlin’s puppet’s opponent is just “bad sushi”.
9/23

And that’s exactly what Scotty’s new book titled “Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine” is all about. He shifts all the blame of the Russo-Ukrainian War on Obama & Biden, and claims that Russia simply “had to invade”.

10/23

Horton falsely claims that the US spent 100 million USD on the “coup” in Ukraine, but never explained why massive, months-long, anti-Yanukovych and pro-EU protests erupted all over Ukraine in freezing winter temperatures, even in Donbas & Crimea.



11/23

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1635211581868085250

On Piers’ show, Scott was trying to be a bit more careful with his words, but with vatnik-friendly Judge Napolitano, he parrots all the classic Kremlin narratives: US sponsored 2014 “Ukraine coup d’État”, the West “wanted the war to happen” and Ukraine is “full of Nazis”.

12/23

According to Scotty, Putin decided to invade Crimea as a reaction to Obama’s “illegal Ukrainian coup of ’14”. He’s also claimed that “Russia took Crimea without firing a single shot” & somehow suggests that this move wasn’t “aggression”. Truly a libertarian, antiwar figure.
13/23

He was one of the speakers & sponsor at the first RATWM “antiwar” event in DC in February 2023 (featuring warmongers like Hinkle and Reade). The event demands were a Putin’s wishlist of (among other things) ending aid to Ukraine & disbanding NATO.



14/23

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1652211607609507840

Naturally, suggesting total capitulation of the defender without calling for the aggressor to cease hostilities and remove their army from occupied territory is hardly an “antiwar” stance. It’s actually a sign of support for imperialism and as pro-war as you can get.

15/23

Like a good Kremlin lapdog, Scotty has also been promoting Russia’s new “superweapon” Oreshnik, blaming Joe Biden for “escalating the war” by allowing Ukraine to hit legitimate military targets inside Russia with long-range missiles such as ATACMS.

16/23

Scotty also has a funny way of ignoring all the human rights violations in Russia & he’s for example called Washington Post’s report on torture and persecution of ethnic&sexual minorities “CIA propaganda”. He also has a hard time believing the genocide against Ukrainians.

17/23

Actually, he even had a hard time believing in Russia’s full-scale invasion just a week before it actually happened (a classic among alleged vatnik “experts”). He looks so proud in the video below, when he could say it on live television!

18/23

As is tradition, Horton’s takes on Syria are just as bad as his takes on Ukraine and Russia. He claims that Assad’s sarin attacks against his own people were “hoaxes”, and he’s even suggested that Assad is “probably a better leader” for Syria than al-Julani.

19/23

Considering that Horton claims to absolutely despise Nazis, it is strange that he’s decided to cooperate with and befriend one of the US’s biggest Nazi apologists, Darryl Cooper (@martyrmade). Scott and Darryl were at one point even supposed to author “Provoked” together.

20/23

I have a hard time understanding why @piersmorgan has decided to add Horton as a regular panelist, but it probably has something to do with getting better ratings through rage-baiting. I mean, he also platforms vatniks like Jeffrey Sachs, Benny Johnson and George Galloway.

21/23

Interestingly, Scott’s wife Larisa Alexandrovna is a Ukrainian who has a much less glamorous picture of Russia: “Russian occupation is worse than death. Let’s not forget that Russia has starved Ukraine and committed mass genocide on purpose…Nobody wants to live like that.”
22/23

To conclude, Horton is as antiwar as Vladimir Putin, and his only argument is “US bad” with anger issues. For some reason, he’s invited by the MSM to discuss ongoing conflicts, even though he defends authoritarian states like Russia and Assad’s Syria and lacks any actual expertise.
23/23