Glenn Eric Andre Diesen (born 1979) is a Norwegian political scientist who is known as a regular commentator on the Russian state-controlled international news television network RT.
Academics as well as Scandinavian media have criticized him for promoting Russian propaganda.
Diesen earned a PhD from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam with a dissertation titled Inter-democratic Security Institutions and the Security Dilemma.
2020
Until 2020 he was based in Russia and employed by the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics.
In 2020 he became an associate professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, where he was promoted to professor in 2021.
He specializes in Russian foreign policy, political economy, conservatism and Eurasian integration, and has written several books.
He is affiliated with the Valdai Discussion Club.
Diesen is a broadcaster and regular commentator on Russia Today (RT), and has been widely described by Scandinavian media and academics as promoting Russian propaganda.
He also writes for Steigan
Patrik Oksanen considers Diesen to be "part of the Russian propaganda machinery."
Aage Borchgrevink of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said that Diesen has "an important role in RT as the Western expert, which gives legitimacy to what clearly appears to be the Kremlin's version [...] his writings are unreliable, the factual basis is doubtful, and characterized by the content and form of Russian propaganda, as expressed in RT and Sputnik."
In 2020, Diesen wrote an op-ed in Aftenposten with Arne Treholt, that stated that Russia has "legitimate interests and security needs" and said that Russia was unfairly demonized as a security threat.
The paper's former foreign affairs editor Kjell Dragnes wrote that Diesen and Treholt promoted Russian propaganda.
