When news broke that a fake Vitaliy Klychko was involved in a series of video calls with European mayors, rumor had it that we might be witnessing the advent of deep fake espionage. As it turned out, these calls were but a small sample size of a series of such antics by the Russian comedy duo Vovan and Lexus, who have a history of conducting prank calls to celebrities and politicians. Nevertheless, the ease with which they connected with high-ranking EU officials has exposed the flimsiness of security measures in the West.
On June 24th, the mayors of Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid were duped into fake video calls with a person they believed to be the mayor of Kyiv, former boxer Vitaliy Klychko. In these video calls, Klychko appeared to start off with some harmless smalltalk, but continued to ask increasingly politically loaded questions. In the case of Franziska Giffey, mayor of Berlin, he asked how Berlin dealt with the fact that “so many Ukrainians were trying to obtain social benefits,” before requesting that she support “the return of young men to Ukraine to fight.” By the time Klychko asked for help in organizing a Christopher Street Day parade in Kyiv (a traditional festival in Berlin), Giffey became suspicious, shortly after which the communication line broke off.
The mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig, however took the bait and even shared a—now deleted—tweet about the meeting with Klychko. Only the mayor of Madrid was savvy enough to figure out the scheme, quickly becoming suspicious of the meeting and ending the call after a few minutes.
As it turns out, no deep fake technology was used. Vovan and Lexus, who claimed to be behind the calls, used older footage of Klychko, which might have given away the prank, as Klychko was dressed up in winter attire in the middle of June.
It wasn’t the first time Vovan and Lexus lured high-ranking Western politicians into their trap. Banned from YouTube, their videos are instead released on the Russian Youtube alternative, Rutube. More than a year ago they released a call by a fake Greta Thunberg to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. More recent videos include a lengthy call with former U.S. President George Bush, as well as a call with the British Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. In both of the latter calls the duo pretended to be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
While politicians and media are outraged about the personality theft, the ease with which the comedians were able to organize phone calls reveals glaring holes in the security net. In case of the meeting with the mayor of Madrid, all it took was an email sent from the address “[email protected].” None of the employees from the mayor’s office seemed to bother verifying the address or else they would have found that governmental emails in Ukraine always end in the “gov.ua” domain.
While the Russian comedians insist that their pranks are meant to be funny, Western media noted that their targets are often critics of Russian politics. In the case of J.K. Rowling, the comedians got the author to applaud a group of pro-Putin seniors, tricked by the cyrillic lettering, “Only Putin,” worn on their t-shirts. Rowling was told that they were a group of Ukrainian “unconventional” forces: wizards and witches. Vovan and Lexus, however, claimed that this was not meant to be a political statement, but just “a funny meme.”
“Regardless of what the motivation behind this may be: it remains identity theft,” said Franziska Giffey, adding that “they won’t succeed in undermining our trust in Ukraine.” Vitaly Klychko also released a video message, reminding politicians in the West, that “for those who speak English or German: I never need a translator,” stressing that meetings should only be arranged via official channels.
It seems remarkable that such an obvious reminder is needed.
