The night a missile fell in Poland, the Polish president Andrzej Duda received a call from a fake Emmanuel Macron. The Polish presidency admits it today, explaining in a tweet that Duda, suspecting fraud, ended the conversation in front of the “unusual way” in which the interlocutor spoke.
The “joke”, if one can say so for a phone call that took place one night when the Ukrainian conflict risked widening, was perpetrated by Russian actors Vovan and Lexus, who posted the recording of the call on Youtube. Duda is heard telling the fake French president that he wants to be “extra cautious” and doesn’t want “a war with Russia”.
The two comedians are not new to this type of play. We are talking about Vladimir Krasnov (also known by the surname Kuznetsov) and Alexei Stolyarov, who as a duo call themselves “Vovan and Lexus”. Last June they posed as the mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko and had contacted various European mayors. Later they had turned to the German television magazine ARD Kontraste attributing the authorship of the prank calls to European mayors, including that of the mayor of Berlin Franziska Giffey.
In 2015 they had made a stir for calling Elton John pretending to be Vladimir Putin, intending to discuss LGBT rights with the British pop star.