Illustrative photo – Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel answers the questions of journalist and writer Alexander Osang on the stage of the Berliner Ensemble theater in the program What is my country? (Was also ist mein Land?) 7 June 2022.
Berlin – Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel ran into a pair of Russian pranksters who pretended to be former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a telephone conversation with her. Parts of the interview were published on the Internet by a couple called Vovan and Lexus, who have already done several similar stunts. However, according to the DPA agency, Merkel did not reveal anything special to them. She refused to answer some questions, for example about her pension.
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“I can confirm a phone call with a caller who pretended to be former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko,” Merkel's spokeswoman said, adding that the phone call took place on January 12.
“Hello. Is Petro Poroshenko there?” the former long-serving chancellor asks her counterpart at the beginning of the phone call. Then he discusses the war in Ukraine with him and talks about the West's cohesion in supporting a country attacked by Russia. “We are friends, we want to help you,” she remarked, for example.
Towards the end of the interview, according to DPA, it is clear that Merkel is uncomfortable with some questions, for example about her pension, so she does not answer them. According to her spokeswoman, she later informed the German Foreign Ministry about the interview and her impressions of it.
Vovan and Lexus have in the past, for example, tricked Polish President Andrzej Duda, even twice. Once in a fake phone call, they pretended to be UN Secretary General António Guterres, and the second time they were pretending to be French President Emmanuel Macron. Former British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and Poroshenko themselves also became victims of their pranks.
