Against this, photos of the local kids burying their time capsule to mark the opening of the Saracen-sponsored law school. British Secretary of State for Industry leads largest-ever trade mission seeking to cement UK–Kazakhstan ties.

I took a seat.

‘Any news?’ she said. ‘On the … situation.’

‘We’re working hard. We may have something of a Russian influence operation on our hands.’

Piper sighed. ‘Russian influence.’

‘Have you had issues with any unusual online activity?’

‘Issues? Reality is melting. That’s an issue. That’s new terrain. How long have you got?’

She clicked on a video, turned the MacBook towards me. Five guards in black uniforms surrounded a Daewoo Nexia on a narrow road. They pulled the doors open and dragged three men in T-shirts and jeans out of the car, forcing them to lie face down on the ground. There was a rocky escarpment on one side of the road, a fence on the other. One of the uniformed men pulled a handgun and fired at the men’s legs.

Title: Saracen Oil’s private army. Posted today, 7,324 views.

‘Genuine?’ I said.

‘We’re checking. There’s quite a lot of GL5 in the country. The views have doubled in the last couple of hours and it’s just been reposted by a big name in the US. All of which shows you why a story about a woman who turns out to have been spying for a British oil company and got herself caught up in fuck knows what could give us a lot of fires to put out.’

The source was an account called Miss_P, with a picture of a Disney princess as an avatar.

‘They’ve spent eight months tweeting diet tips and inspirational quotes: Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears. Fine. There are make-up tips, a guide to Astana, then, 23 November, Miss P goes in heavy on abuse by Private Security Contractors. She posts on various platforms and gets big amplification.’

A quick glance at the analytics told me it was the system Vishinsky’s unit had developed. You establish shepherd accounts – active and influential people who kick off a trending topic. For that you need a large number of followers and interaction with high-profile players. Those are difficult to establish, and had to be run by humans, but you only needed a few. Sheepdog accounts follow and are also run by humans. They retweet the stories and riff on them, turning up the heat, making the whole thing go viral. Then come the sheep – the zombie army of bots – helping to amplify it and spread the stories across platforms.

Up next on Piper’s tour of melting reality was the still image of a young woman sitting in the snow, crying, forked tributaries of blood down her face.

‘What happened to her?’ I asked.

‘Attacked by police during protests in a town called Semey.’

‘Connected to the rape?’