On 12 July 2014 Russian state TV published an infamous report where a woman presenting herself as a refugee from Slavyansk described a horrifying story of public execution on its main square, where a 4 years old boy was crucified by Ukrainian soldiers before a crowd of hundreds of local residents. In spite of absence of any corroborating evidence - there were no videos, no photos, no body and no other witness statements - Russian TV reported it absolutely seriously and made it a headline story for some period, with Russian experts voicing their outrage and presenting it as a canonical example of "genocide of Russians" and general inhumanity of Ukrainian government. The story was however short-lived in mainstream media and some experts believed its main purpose was to create a stir in the Russian media sphere to distract audience attention from rather miserable Russian withdrawal from Slavyansk. Outside of Russia, the story in turn became a canonical example of Russian disinformation and even was subject to scientific research.