The victims of Russian scammers Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetsov and Alexei “Lexus” Stoliarov, who call famous politicians posing as world-famous figures, have in the past been, among others, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson , Prince Harry, French President Emmanuel Macron, or Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Critics accuse the scam couple of having links to Russian intelligence services, which interested parties themselves deny, the BBC reported in 2020 after Vovan and Lexus called Prime Minister Trudeau, claiming to be activist Greta Thunberg.
“We only choose the topics that interest us,” Kuznetsov told the Guardian in 2016.
Not only President Duda
A month ago, the YouTube channel called Stars Save the Earth posted video recordings of conversations between the scammers and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian President’s Chancellery. There are also many other Vovan and Lexus “jokes” on the channel.
In May 2018, Vovan and Lexus called the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, claiming to be the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinian. They spoke with Johnson for about 20 minutes. The British government said the Kremlin was behind the talks.
The French president was called by Russian scammers in 2019, posing as newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In turn, Britain’s Prince Harry and Canada’s prime minister were convinced they were talking to Greta Thunberg, who posed as two Russians.
In February 2017, Vovan and Lexus announced that they had reached NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claiming to be then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. However, this information was not confirmed, and the media did not publish a recording of the alleged conversation in which the fake Poroshenko asked, among other things, about the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO “in the next two years”. In the same year, NATO prepared a report on the use of humor in propaganda.
Russian media reported in June 2022 that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave two scammers specially secured phones – the same ones used in Russian government communications.
“A pair of phone ‘pranksters’ (people who make jokes to deliberately mislead someone – PAPs) have targeted numerous Kremlin enemies,” the BBC service assessed in an analysis of the actions of Vovan and Lexus. .
