Lions in Russia: a tale of Fake News

With all the information circulating around the internet in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, it won’t be anyone’s surprise that there would be quite a fake stories mixed in the noise, some which can only be described as comically absurd. One such “news” story is that of the Russian government releasing zoo lions in urban locations to implement a nation-wide lockdown to suppress the spread of this dangerous novel coronavirus.

With the existence of several extremely tough problems with maintaining such measures, especially the intrinsic complexities associated with keeping people indoors for long periods of time, it’s understandable why many individuals in the general public would accept this story as the truth. It should be noted that the way President Vladimir Putin is observed in the world stage might have played a key role in the popularity of this story, additionally, the way Russia is portrayed in modern pop-culture hasn’t done them any favours.