The great lie is a propaganda technique described back in 1925 by Adolf Hitler in the book “My Struggle”, which became the ideological basis of national socialism.

The German dictator defined this concept as “a lie is so great that no one will believe that someone had the courage to distort reality so shamelessly”.

A correctly arranged and well-thought-out “great lie” causes a deep emotional trauma in the listener or viewer, which then determines their views for a long time, contrary to any arguments of logic and reason. False descriptions of the abuse of children or women work especially well in this sense. Russian propaganda has studied well the heritage, principles and methods of its “sworn ideological enemy” Hitler and often uses this technique in its work.

An example of a systemic disinformation narrative is the alleged work of numerous “American biological laboratories” in Ukraine. Russian propagandists spread extremely absurd messages about the presence in Ukraine of fighting mosquitoes, birds and bats, designed to spread dangerous viruses to the soldiers of the occupying army. The continuation of this narrative was fakes about the presence of dangerous infectious diseases in the blood of captured soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, for example, West Nile fever. Russian propaganda noted that “secret experiments” were carried out on them, which turned the Ukrainian military into “super-hard monsters”.

Propagandists came up with other completely wild fakes. Thus, they claimed that during the defense of Mariupol in 2022, “Ukrainian Nazis from Azov allegedly raped pregnant women [local residents hiding in basements from shelling] for food” and tortured them. Some of the girls were minors.

Russian propaganda used the “great lie” during the ATO in 2014-2015. One can recall the fake about the alleged crucifixion and burning alive of a DNR militant (“militia”) by “mercenaries of the Azov battalion”, as well as, of course, the “immortal classic” - the crucifixion of a “boy in panties” in Sloviansk after his release in 2014 from Russian terrorist gangs of Ihor Strielkov (Girkin). In both cases, an allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is used, which fits well into the general outline of Russian propaganda, one of the cornerstones of which is Orthodoxy.