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The fake account is part of a network promoting Russian president Vladimir Putin on Twitter, which used the hashtags #IStandWithPutin and #IStandWithRussia on 2 and 3 March. This led to trending topics in different regions - particularly in the global south, apparently showing support for the war, in countries including India, Pakistan, South Africa and Nigeria.

many other profiles appear to have been inauthentic. They retweeted messages in high quantities, produced few original messages, and were created very recently. "They were likely produced by bots, fake profiles or compromised accounts, artificially amplifying support for Putin in these countries," says Carl Miller, co-founder of CASM Technology, a company that researches online harms and disinformation.

The accounts tweet a mixture of criticism of Western countries, express solidarity between the so-called Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and offer direct support to Mr Putin. "We default to the idea that information campaigns will be directed to the West. Yet none of the accounts were addressing the West nor claimed to be from the West," says Mr Miller.

Does it matter that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just named as his chief adviser a former journalist who alleges that foreign powers have tried to kill the Turkish prime minister by telekinesis? Here are some reasons why Tuesday’s appointment of Yigit Bulut, a Sorbonne graduate who has also alleged that Lufthansa is plotting against Turkey (pictured), may be of relevance.

The prime minister is the overwhelming power in a country in which he has steadily added to his clout during a decade in office, which has seen him win three elections. The last few weeks has shown several instances in which supposedly independent Turkish institutions appear to have fallen in line with his preferences – whether by making a former governing party MP editor-in-chief of a seized newspaper, fining television channels that screened extensive footage of the protests or launching an investigation apparently spurred by his denunciations of the interest rate lobby.

Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish writer who has backed Erdogan in the past, says Bulut’s appointment shows that the prime minister takes the conspiracy theories seriously – if only because he wants to use them as propaganda ahead of presidential elections next year.