The Russians aren't stupid - they know they can use the Western media to their own end in attacking Western governments. The West cannot effectively respond seeing as Russian media is strictly controlled in comparison.
It's certainly not in Russia's interest to have a strong, united NATO on its border so spreading seeds of discontent to weaken NATO members certainly makes sense. The Soviets commonly incorporated "maskirovka" into their plans & the current Russian government seems to follow a similar line of thinking.
Disinformation, fake news, regime change, the creation of energy crisis, cyber warfare and hybrid conflicts have all been used by the Putin administration since his return as President. The reality is that Russians seem to have set up their doctrine purely to defeat the NATO alliance while the West also has the Middle East and to a lesser extent, China to worry about.
Seeing as NATO has slowly but surely spread East since the end of the Cold War, it's easy to understand why the Russians feel so threatened - the USA for example would certainly never tolerate a Russian influenced Mexico on its border - even if the West has absolutely no desire to fight any kind of war with Moscow.