CEN The 'news report' begins with reports of shelling at the Ukraine conflict frontline

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In the extraordinary clip a Russian parliament employee pretending to be near the volatile frontline of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine bursts out laughing as her cover is blown.



A light is switched on and Maria Katasonova, who works for a Russian MP, is revealed to be standing in a darkened room as recorded explosions play in the background.



With the cover blown, Katasonova then quickly orders her friend to stop shooting.

The fake war report, which has already been seen over a million times on YouTube, is an embarrassing propaganda fail for Putin, who is trying to win the PR war alongside the military one in Ukraine.



The Kremlin has been trying to portray the Ukrainian government forces as the aggressors in the conflict despite a fragile ceasefire holding.



The West has accused Putin of propping up the Ukrainian rebels and supplying them with soldiers and tanks - a claim the Russian leader denies.



At the start of the video, Katasonova, an assistant to the nationalist MP Evgeny Fedorov, claimed: "We are now only 1,000 feet away from the front line, the Ukrainian army started shelling at 5 o’clock."





CEN The 'reporter' Katasonova can't keep a straight face and bursts out laughing

Katasonova describes the scene to the camera as the sounds of shelling explosions go off all around her.



However, the young Maria Katasonova, who has a record of starring in extreme propaganda videos, couldn't keep a straight face and soon bursts out laughing.



The lights are then switched on in the room and her propaganda scam operation is uncovered.



Commenters on social websites have branded the clumsy news report attempt as a perfect example of how the manipulative Russian propaganda machine works.