What is the effect of a state's use of normative principles on individuals' political beliefs during geopolitical crises? And how do populations with different types of beliefs -- especially different conceptualizations of democracy -- respond to the use of such principles? We argue that states even antithetical to the liberal international order -- such as Russia -- nevertheless utilize normative principles championed by the liberal international order to frame their perspective on geopolitical crises effectively. Moreover, we expect Russia's invocation of normative principles to be especially effective for those with illiberal conceptions of democracy or supporters of democratic backsliders as they fail to detect subversion. We assess evidence for this argument with a survey experiment in Hungary, Germany and the United States leveraging mock social media posts from foreign ministries related to geopolitical crises. We find that normative principles in general are ineffective, however we find that normative couching is an effective means of mitigating the backlash towards states who violate core principles of the LIO, in particular among individuals holding liberal conceptions of democracy.