The sneaky sites, with names like DC Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and the Miami Chronicle, pretend to be local news outlets, but they are Kremlin propaganda machines.

They mix up real stories with fake ones, spreading lies and rumours about crime, politics and culture, to trick unsuspecting American readers.

Russia has been trying to meddle in US affairs for years, but the fake news sites - at least five so far - are a new trick to find new ways to hoodwink the public.

The sites could be part of a bigger online network, ready to pump out more rubbish ahead of the US presidential election in November.

The Miami Chronicle's website popped up on 26 February. It claims to have been "the Florida News since 1937", but that's a load of cobblers.

Among some true reports, the site ran a story last week about a "leaked audio recording" of Victoria Nuland, a top US diplomat, talking about ditching Russia's opposition after the death of the Russian rebel Aleksei A. Navalny. According to US officials who spoke on the quiet, the recording is a fake.

Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub boffins Patrick Warren and Darren Linvill warned that the websites are made to look like real news sources, but they are slick propaganda.

"The page is just there to look realistic enough to fool a casual reader into thinking they're reading a genuine, US-branded article," they said.

To be fair when you have players like Fox News, and the Tame Apple Press on the market, it is unclear what information is true in US media.