The goal is to poison the well. If you convince people that Russia has no specific goal except spreading evil and discord, you can 1) ascribe any act to Russia without having to come up with any reason why they would do it, and 2) not-so-subtly turn him to Satan in the Protestant mind, the only being whose only object is chaos.

Putin does the same thing in Russia (as US intelligence agencies do in the US.) With one of his major power centers being the Russian Orthodox Church, he can frame every external attack as an attack on religion, and a sign of the end-times - one of the reasons for the extremely homophobic policy and culture he's helped grow. The West is trying to turn us gay to destroy our religion.