Verification of this information by BBC Russian Service revealed that the material was published by a fake website that imitated the British outlet The Guardian. As for John Scarlett’s interview, it was entirely fabricated. The web-page developed for this specific purpose displayed visuals that were identical to those of The Guardian, while the URL differed from The Guardian’s actual web-address in just one latin letter ‘i’.

This is called a deflective source model, whereby the primary source of information is concealed and western media brand is used to legitimize a message or fake news and to make readers perceive it as a material published by the apparent source.