In recent days, the phrase “winter is coming” has been haunting me. That is partly because, like millions of others, I have started watching House of the Dragon, the prequel to Game of Thrones, which had these ominous words as its tagline.

But there is a second reason. I recently watched a video on YouTube that aims to persuade English-speaking viewers to move to Putin’s Russia because, well, “winter is coming”. The 53-second film makes its pitch by highlighting the alleged attractions of Putin’s country. “Delicious cuisine, beautiful women, cheap gas, rich history, fertile soil, cheap electricity, ballet, cheap taxi,” a voice solemnly notes as images, including several of beautiful women, flash past.

That’s not all. Traditional values, Christianity, “no cancel culture” and vodka are all trumpeted, along with an “economy that can withstand thousands of sanctions”. The bizarre video triumphantly concludes that it’s time to move to Russia without delay. It might just be a jokey reference to Game of Thrones, but it has also been interpreted as a thinly veiled threat. Get out now and move to Russia, it seems to say, before Moscow targets the west in some way in the coming months.