Russian pranksters “Vova” and “Lexus” have claimed another victim in the shape of Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski after impersonating former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in a video conversation.
The fake footage saw Poland’s top diplomat apparently call NATO’s attitude towards Ukraine “hypocritical” and claim that the US knew in advance of the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022.
In the recording, in which the pranksters used deep fake imagery to make Sikorski look as though he was addressing Poroshenko, the minister stated that “the NATO attitude [to Ukrainian membership] is somewhat hypocritical” because it “is saying ‘you can become a member of NATO once you’ve won the war and don’t need it anymore’”. He added: “I think some of our west European friends are using the idea of Ukraine joining NATO as a bargaining chip with Russia.”
Sikorski summarised the western European proposal to Russia as such: “Withdraw from Ukraine, and we promise you Ukraine will not be in NATO, and if you don’t withdraw, and we freeze the conflict, then the rest of Ukraine will be in NATO.”
When asked who was responsible for the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, Sikorski said: “We now know that the Americans had advanced knowledge of it and didn’t stop it,” although he refused to say who he believed had carried out the attack.
He claimed there was “zero willingness for Poland to send its own forces to Ukraine”, since doing so would just “confirm what Russian propaganda has been saying all along” about being attacked by the West.
The Polish foreign minister reiterated his support for the plan to establish a Ukrainian legion in Poland to fight in the war and supported the idea of stopping social security in EU states for Ukrainians avoiding fighting. “People should not be paid for being draft dodgers,” he said.
He also criticised Polish President Andrzej Duda for his suggestions that Poland could host US nuclear weapons, calling them “unhelpful” and “harmful”.
Duda, who is aligned with the opposition Conservatives (PiS), has twice fallen victim to Vovan and Lexus, most recently in November 2022, when he believed he was speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron and Sikorski mocked him for falling for the ruse.
Other world leaders tricked by the pranksters in the past include French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US presidential hopeful Kamala Harris and former UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
Poland’s foreign ministry on September 12 called the recording with Sikorski “garbage Russian propaganda by jokers sponsored by the security services”, noting that the conversation had taken place months ago and appeared to have been released to coincide with a visit to Poland by the US secretary of state Anthony Blinken on the same day.
The foreign ministry also claimed that nothing Sikorski had said in the conversation with the pranksters differed in any way from what he had previously stated in public interviews.
While still in opposition as an MEP, in 2022 Sikorski had posted on social media a photograph of the site of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines with the caption: “Thank you USA!” The post was used by the Russian ambassador to the UN as “evidence” that the West was behind the attack.
In his meeting with Blinken, Sikorski had said that Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons against Russian territory in self-defence because “Russia is committing war crimes by attacking civilian targets”.
“Missiles that hit these civilian targets are fired from bomber aircraft from over the territory of Russia. These bombers take off from airfields on Russia’s territory,” Sikorski said, adding: “A victim of aggression has the right to defend itself” and that Ukraine “has the right to use Western weapons to prevent war crimes”.
Blinken’s response saw him maintaining the strategic ambiguity of keeping all options open: “I can tell you that as we go forward we will do exactly what we have already done, which is we will adjust as necessary … in order to defend against Russian aggression,” he said.
Reports from the meeting between US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have indicated that the US administration remained unconvinced about the desirability of long-range strikes into Russian territory by Ukraine.
