In their book The European Union and Russia (2016), Forsberg and Haukkala characterized whataboutism as an "old Soviet practice", and they observed that the strategy "has been gaining in prominence in the Russian attempts at deflecting Western criticism".
Dalam buku The European Union and Russia (2016), Forsberg dan Haukkala mencap bahwa whataboutisme adalah "praktik usang Soviet" dan mereka mengamati bahwa strategi ini "mulai muncul kembali dalam upaya-upaya Rusia mengalihkan kritik Barat".