Two Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus (real names Vladimir Kuznetsov and Aleksei Stolyarov) managed to trick UK Home Secretary Priti Patel into a 15 minutes long phone call. Posing as Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the duo discussed the ongoing Ukrainian war and Britain’s support for Ukraine with the Home Secretary. Patel was the second UK Minister to become a target of the comedy duo after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had a 10 minutes long Teams call with them.
Sitting in her office in front of a Union Jack and a Ukraine flag, Patel discussed all aspects of the Ukraine war, including the refugee crisis and UK’s response to that. Experts were debating whether the video was spliced, to attach different answers to different questions to make the Home Secretary’s answers look silly upon viewing.
At one point, the pranksters asked Patel if UK will be afraid of the Neo-Nazis from Ukraine, and she replied ,”Clearly they’re not, the support is very significant here, it really is.” She also admitted during the call that they pressurized Kenya and UAE to support Ukraine in the ongoing war against Russia.
As the call went on, reality slowly dawned on Priti Patel as the caller kept saying more and more absurd things, including praising the fair trial of Julian Assange, who the caller claimed drank a lot of UK’s blood.
Earlier, the pranksters had released the video of their call with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, in which Wallace told the pranksters that Britain wanted Ukraine to join NATO but was blocked by other countries.
The government sources in Britain have alleged that these prank calls are part of Russian propaganda, and an attempt to spread disinformation using edited clips. Vovan and Lexus have been accused of having links with Russian intelligence in the past, a charge they have denied.
These are not the first instances of UK politicians falling prey to prank calls. In 2018, Boris Johnson, who was foreign secretary at the time, had an 18 minutes phone call with a prankster pretending to be Armenian Prime Minister. In another instance, a prank caller pretending to be the chief of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the UK was put through to former Prime Minister David Cameron.
