Russia's top coronavirus fake news stories were about Western plots - a theme also popular in Chinese disinformation.
There was little hope of educating people who believed that type of thing, propaganda experts said.
But some of the lies had "real-world consequences" that were hard to ignore.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.