LISA F. is a 13-year-old Russian-German girl who lives in Berlin. On January 11th she disappeared for about 30 hours. When she resurfaced, she claimed to have been abducted and raped by a group of migrants. Russian media pounced on the story, whipping their audiences into a frenzy. Even the Kremlin got in on it. On January 26th Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, accused Germany of hushing up the case in order “to paint over reality with political correctness”. The charge was that Germany, a victim of Western decadence and the naive refugee policy of its chancellor, could not or would not protect “our Lisa”.

In the current political climate, many people in Russia and Germany are eager to believe such a message. Among them are many “Russian-Germans”: ethnic Germans who lived for centuries in Russia but in recent decades have moved back to Germany, where they number about 2m. Many watch Russian television. Thousands of them took to German streets to protest for Lisa. They were joined by German nationalists and some supporters of the NPD, a neo-Nazi party eager to spread any negative rumour about refugees.

Berlin’s police, ever conscientious about upholding the law and exercising discretion, kept their initial statements matter-of-fact. They had no evidence of any abduction, but were investigating the possibility that Lisa had engaged in consensual sex earlier on (which might constitute statutory rape). Of two suspects, neither was a migrant.

Undaunted, the Russian media continued to peddle conspiracy theories. Germans gradually became outraged by their failure to respect due process. Even Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who usually displays an embarrassing eagerness to accommodate Russian vanity, called Moscow’s statements “political propaganda”. Mr Lavrov replied that he interpreted that as an admission of guilt.

On January 29th the police explained what had actually taken place. Lisa F. spent the night of January 11th with her 19-year-old boyfriend. She had had problems at school, the prosecutor’s office says, and didn’t dare to go home. Crises of trust wherever one looks.