Two Russian pranksters have called US Congresswoman Maxine Waters posing as the Ukrainian PM seeking reassurances in the wake of Moscow’s most recent “invasions” across the globe and impudent “hacking” of presidential elections in a fictitious country.
The two tricksters famous for their high-level prank calls are Vladimir Krasnov and Aleksey Stolyarov, known online as Vovan and Lexus. Their new audio posted online features a talk between the duo, impersonating Ukrainian PM Volodimir Groysman, and a female alleged to be Congresswoman Maxine Waters, known for her strict anti-Russian stance.
While being quite “surprised” to receive a call from 'Groysman,' the alleged Congresswoman seemingly did not suspect a foul play and promised “to do the right things” for Ukraine, which naturally involved imposing new sanctions against Russia.
“I heard that Senator Lindsey and Senator McCain are going to try to make even more sanctions, tougher sanctions,” the supposed Waters told the pranksters. The new US President wanted to lift or at least “review sanctions” against Russia, but met with strong opposition in the Senate and “probably he’s backing up some,” she told the duo.
The pranksters then proceeded to exploit the seriously lacking geography knowledge of Congresswoman Waters, who had recently claimed that Russia was “advancing in Korea.”
Speaking about the most recent “development” in Ukraine, the duo claimed that “Putin’s regular army” had “simultaneously occupied” both Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine and Lvov, which is in the West. In addition, the pranksters said that Russia had “invaded Gabon” to support President Ondimba.
As a final blow, the pranksters claimed that Moscow had “hacked the election system” in a fictitious country of Limpopo, completely reversing the outcome and installing their puppet Ai Bolit as a president. Since the situation there has become even “worse than in the US,” the ousted president of Limpopo was considering fleeing to Ukraine, they said.
According to “insider information” shared by the pranksters, the mastermind behind the “Limpopo hacking” was Vladimir Putin himself, and the “attacks” were coordinated by his two advisers, known only by their internet nicknames – Vovan and Lexus. The supposed Congresswoman seemingly wrote down these aliases to presumably investigate them further. 'Waters' said “more information is needed” as she did not know how many intelligence assets the US had there.
While Limpopo is a province in South Africa, the duo was obviously referring to a completely fictitious land from children’s book “Aybolit and Barmaley” by Korney Chukovsky. Nevertheless, the supposed Congresswoman assured the pranksters that “the US is going to stand with you guys” and will “keep these sanctions on Russia.”
At the end of the call, the pranksters claimed that Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko had recently been plagued by an unfortunate problem with television, which all of a sudden switched to RT broadcasting Vladimir Putin’s interview.
“It happened to me too!” the supposed Congresswoman replied, referring to the incident on the C-SPAN channel when the speech of Maxine Waters due to internal routing problems was “blacked out” by RT for some ten minutes.
The two pranksters Vovan and Lexus have long been famous in Russia for making fun of high-profile people, including politicians and celebrities. The trickster duo became household names during the 2014 political crisis and subsequent civil war in Ukraine, as they often impersonated Ukrainian politicians.
They called Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko amidst the Ukrainian crisis, impersonating the son of the ousted President Yanukovich asking for asylum for his father. The duo also called Recep Tayyip Erdogan asking when he would apologize for the downed Russian military jet, although the Turkish leader’s press service denied the phone call.
One of their most elaborate pranks, involving multiple calls to various officials, was a conversation with a high-ranking US Brig. Gen. Kevin McNeely impersonating Ukraine’s then-PM Arseniy Yatsenuk and President Poroshenko himself.