The comedian duo behind the successful coup against numerous European mayors is paid indirectly by the Russian state-owned company Gazprom. Alexej Stoljarow and Vladimir Kusnezow tricked Franziska Giffey with a fake call from Vitali Klitschko.
The two Russian comedians, who claimed responsibility for the fake video broadcasts with European mayors, say they work for an Internet platform that belongs to the Russian state-owned company Gazprom. According to ARD information, they admitted in an interview that they were financed by the Rutube platform, a Russian copy of YouTube.
"We work for Rutube and are Rutube ambassadors, so we get our money from there," Alexei Stoljarov, alias Lexus, told the ARD magazine "Kontraste". Since 2008, Rutube has belonged to Gazprom-Media - a media group founded by Russia's state-owned company Gazprom.
In the last week of June, Berlin's governing mayor Franziska Giffey spoke via video with a person who looked like Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko but was not Klitschko. After a while, she had doubts about various questions from her counterpart. The conversation then ended prematurely.
It was subsequently revealed that the mayors of Vienna, Madrid, Budapest and Warsaw were similarly tricked. The Russian comedian duo "Vovan and Lexus" admitted in an interview with "Contrasts" at the end of June that they were behind the fake video calls. In Berlin, the state security of the State Criminal Police Office started investigations.
Stolyarov and his colleague Vladimir Kuznetsov have been known in Russia for years for tricking high-ranking politicians and other international celebrities with fake calls. The Russian media had recently suspected that the two could be behind the conversation with Giffey. In the past few weeks, the two comedians, who are considered loyal to the Kremlin, had misled former US President George W. Bush and bestselling author Joanne K. Rowling in this way. In both cases they posed as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
