Promoting democracy is taking a single issue and clearly sating “this is a good thing for everyone and here’s why”.
That is not what Russian “influencers” are doing. They by contrast can be seen arguing fervently on both sides of an argument.
Their goal is not to promote any particular idea but to destabilise both sides by encouraging extreme views in both and driving the factions to be more partisan.
Good faith is important - but how about the communist agents from the past? They did believe in their cause after all. And I think the Chinese also believe that their system is better than the western democracy.
Leaving aside how naive a statement like "the Chinese believe" is (you're talking about an ethnicity which clearly has multiple opinions on everything, just like any other group of people).
In democracies communists are free to say how great it is not having a choice of government and others are free to disagree.
The issue is not with the expression of opinion but with the expression of extremist falsehoods delivered on both sides of an argument with the only goal of causing instability.
Just like in a sales tabloid newspapers, truth is not important only the reaction. Ever notice how the retraction notices are so much less prominent than the original articles were?
Promoting democracy is taking a single issue and clearly sating “this is a good thing for everyone and here’s why”.
That is not what Russian “influencers” are doing. They by contrast can be seen arguing fervently on both sides of an argument.
Their goal is not to promote any particular idea but to destabilise both sides by encouraging extreme views in both and driving the factions to be more partisan.