On the morning of Saturday August 25, the Russian ministry of defence put out a press release.

It made explosive claims that they had intelligence Syrian rebel forces were about to gas their own people in Idlib province - their last stronghold - as part of a “false flag” operation to frame the Syrian government.

By the end of the day, the accusations had been tweeted out by half a dozen Russian embassy accounts, spread by a network of Kremlin-owned and funded media outlets and shared by hundreds of conspiracy theorists and supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.

It appeared to be Moscow’s latest misinformation campaign, a tactic it has used several times since it intervened in the war on behalf of Assad in 2015 and one that follows a familiar formula.

The defence ministry first claimed opposition fighters trained by British “specialists” from security firm Olive Group were preparing to conduct a possible attack, which was to be filmed by White Helmets civil defence rescuers.