The Polish Government has confirmed audio of the President telling pranksters impersonating the French President that he is trying to avoid a war with Russia is genuine.
In an audio clip of a prank call uploaded to a Russian Youtube clone on Tuesday, Poland’s Andrzej Duda could be heard revealing that he had no appetite for a war with Russia over Ukraine.
Tensions between West and East have been mounting all year, with recent accusations — later disproven — that Russia had fired missiles that struck Poland, killing two people, causing many to fear further escalation between NATO and Russia.
These fears may now be dampened though as, according to a report by Reuters about a recorded prank call against the Polish government, President Andrzej Duda professes to be anxious to stay out of conflict, telling who he believed to be French President Emmanuel Macron that he did not want to see a NATO-Russia war.
The President also voiced scepticism as to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim at the time that it was a Russian missile strike that caused the deaths in Poland.
Unbeknownst to Duda at the time, however, he was actually speaking to two Russian pranksters pretending to be Macron, with the pair having since uploaded some of the contents of the call to the net.
“Emmanuel, believe me, I am extra careful,” the Polish head of state told the pranksters in English when asked about a possible escalation in the conflict. “I don’t want to have war with Russia and believe me, I am extra careful, extra careful.”
Saying that he had spoken to U.S. President Joe Biden, the Polish President said Biden didn’t immediately blame Russia for the missile strike, and American experts were helping investigate the strike.
The official Twitter account for the Office of the President of Poland has confirmed that such a hoax call between Duda and whom he believed to be Macron did in fact occur shortly after two people were killed in Poland by missiles.
“After the rocket explosion in Przewodów, during ongoing calls with heads of state and government, a person claiming to be French President Emmanuel Macron was connected [with the President],” a post by the office reads.
“On call President [Andrzej Duda] realized from the unusual way of conducting the conversation by the interlocutor that there may have been an attempt at fraud and ended the conversation,” the statement continued, before noting that an investigation “with the relevant services” into the hoax is now underway.
Although fears over a rapid escalation of the ongoing conflict have subsided somewhat as more evidence points to the missile involved in the strike on Poland having been Ukrainian, the fact that Duda was caught divulging somewhat sensitive viewpoints to Russian pranksters may be cause for some embarrassment.
For the serial pranksters in question, Russia’s Vovan and Lexus, it is yet another notch on their belt since the start of their conflict, with the pair having repeatedly tricked officials across the West into telling them sensitive details over the phone.
Since Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine, the pranksters have tricked a host of current and former Ukrainian officials into calls, as well as the UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel.
The pair also previously managed to convince Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling that they were Volodymyr Zelensky, asking the author about Dumbledore being gay before expressing the hope that the fictional wizard has not slept with a “transgender person”.
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