A substitute teacher at Arlington Public Schools has been suspended after expressing support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine and urging students to read Russian-run propaganda outlets during a Spanish session.

According to Stanton, he told the students to look at as many news sources as they could. One of them was Sputnik News, which the FBI, CIA, and NSA deemed a “state-run propaganda machine” in 2017. He also claimed to have drawn a map of Ukraine, highlighting locations where Russian military had entered.

“I said, ‘Here’s what’s going on,’” Stanton said. But “the statement I think that got me was I said, ‘I personally support the logic of Putin,’ and what I meant by that is, he made a rational decision from his perception.”

On Tuesday, spokesman for Arlington Public Schools Frank Bellavia declined to discuss Stanton’s comments about Russia or his work situation, citing a personnel concern.

Parents of a student in the class wrote to the School Board on Friday, expressing their worries about Stanton. Stanton “told students he supported Russia, asked whether anyone in the class ‘hated Russia,’ and complained about rising gas prices, presumably as an effect of the current crisis,” according to the email, which was shared with The Washington Post. There was a Ukrainian student in the lesson, according to the email.

Stanton’s words, the parents stated, amounted to “advocacy of political positions, and Russian propaganda,” and were “wholly inappropriate.”

Stanton received a letter from Arlington school officials on Tuesday informing him that he had been suspended due to an allegation of comments made to students during instructional hours regarding sensitive world events with Russia and Ukraine.” Arlington officials noted in the letter, which The Post received a copy of, that Stanton can appeal for reinstatement within five days, but Stanton said he has no desire or intentions to do so.

Stanton has been subbing for Arlington for three years, and he claimed he chose the position because he is retired and needed a way to supplement his income. He had a varied career before that, he claimed.

He emailed The Post a two-page résumé listing his roles as a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, host of an unspecified 1980s “political/cultural radio program” in Washington, D.C., and “independent journalist” who provided commentary on national security and political issues to US news organizations including CNN, ABC, and this newspaper’s Foreign Policy magazine. Stanton said he still contributes to publications like Pravda, the Soviet Union’s main propaganda organ.

Stanton said in a Pravda opinion piece on Feb. 28 that the US owns “every country in the NATO alliance” and that the Russia-Ukraine crisis is “great news for the West’s defense contractors,” who will earn “billions.” He also noted that “any support aired by anyone on the West for the Russian position gets mauled and derided by pro-West pundits,” and that “self-censorship by Western media will only get more wicked.”

Stanton served as a reporter for Sputnik News in Washington, D.C., from 2016 to 2018. Stanton was recognized as a Sputnik News “wire reporter” covering the Pentagon in a 2018 “PBS NewsHour” article, which featured a Sputnik official, Beverly Hunt, who confirmed Stanton’s employment.

Stanton was sacked by Sputnik News, according to the “NewsHour” report, for providing information on the news organization to an unknown third-party client. In one interview, Stanton described the client as “a US government intelligence agency.” He refused to say whose agency he worked for or to show documentation of his job there.

“I was extracting as much information as possible from their [Sputnik News] computer systems, taking pictures of the staff, collecting information,” Stanton said.

Bellavia declined to comment on how Stanton was employed by Arlington Public Schools or whether he was subjected to a background check at any stage throughout the employment process.

“We pull from a pool of subs,” Bellavia noted in an email, “and they don’t have to have any background in the subject area they are subbing in.”

Stanton said he understands why some people think a Spanish class should avoid discussing the Russia-Ukraine war. But he also stated that if given another chance, he would deliver the same speech.

“If I reached one student — and there was one student that told the kids ‘Be quiet,’ because he wanted to learn,” Stanton said. “If for one student that is the case then I would do it again.”

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