In an age where high-definition video, forensic photo analysis and publicly available itineraries document nearly every move of a world leader, the Kremlin continues to bet on the world’s susceptibility to its crudest conspiracies.

The latest? France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer and Germany’s Friedrich Merz were allegedly caught doing cocaine on a train on a diplomatic mission into Ukraine.

If you’ve missed the story, here’s what happened.

A short clip circulated online over the weekend showing the three leaders on a train bound for Kyiv. In it, Macron picks up a crumpled tissue, Merz grabs a plastic coffee stirrer and Starmer appears to smile across the table.

That was enough for Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to claim the group had been doing cocaine – and forgot to hide the paraphernalia. She posted a lengthy diatribe on Telegram calling the tissue a “bag of cocaine” and the stirrer a “spoon for consumption”.

France, adopting a sharper strategy against Russian disinformation, responded quickly and bluntly on social media. “When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs,” a post on X read.

“This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation,” the Elysée wrote in an English-language post on X, all while zooming in on the supposed cocaine bag.

It was accompanied by annotated photos: one zoomed in and........

© Brisbane Times