David Cameron talks about Trump and Ukraine in video of prank call released by Russian pranksters
Russian pranksters have released footage showing David Cameron being tricked into believing he was speaking to a former Ukrainian president.
The British Foreign Office announced in early June that “a series of text messages were exchanged, followed by a short video call” between Lord Cameron and a person claiming to be Petro Poroshenko.
In the casual video call, published by the website Guido Fawkes, Lord Cameron discusses Labour, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine with a person claiming to be Petro Poroshenko.
Mr Poroshenko was President of Ukraine between 2014 and 2019 and has remained a prominent figure in the country even after leaving office.
Earlier this month, the British government made the hoax call public in an attempt to ward off any attempts to manipulate video footage of the former prime minister's communications.
When asked by the imposter whether he believed anything would change after the general election, Lord Cameron said the Labour Party had supported Ukraine “as enthusiastically” as the Conservatives.
He said: “I don't think there will be any change. Of course, if they win, there will be a new government and there will be some induction on some issues, but I think fundamentally they have supported everything we have done.”
“I think that if Labour wins, they will maintain this approach.”
When asked about his engagement with former US President and current presidential candidate Trump, Lord Cameron said the Republican would like to “support the winning side” in Ukraine, but his stance was “difficult to predict”.
He says: “I had dinner with (Trump) and my goal was to convince him not to block the money for Ukraine, because the speaker, Mike Johnson, obviously wanted two things: He wanted to approve the money for Ukraine, but he also wanted to keep his job, and I thought it was important to make sure Trump supported him enough to do that, which is what ended up happening.”
He adds: “I think ultimately (Trump) will weigh what is right for him at that time.”
“I think the key is that we can make sure that Ukraine has the upper hand and Putin is on the defensive by November. Then he will want to support the winning side, so to speak, and that is what we need to make sure of.”
“It's hard to predict exactly what his attitude will be, but that's the most important thing.”
Elsewhere in the video, the scammer can be heard saying that not sending Ukraine an invitation to join NATO would send a “bad signal.”
Lord Cameron responded: “There will be no invitation because America will not support it.”
“So I told President (Volodymyr) Zelensky: let's try to find the best possible language about NATO's support for Ukraine. But let's not, let's not, we must not have a dispute between NATO and Ukraine before the summit.”
Later in the video, Lord Cameron reveals a conversation he had with Kazakh Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu during a visit to Kazakhstan earlier this year.
Lord Cameron says: “Kazakhstan is convinced that Putin wants a piece of northern Kazakhstan.”
“(Nurtleu) said Ukrainians are dying for Kazakhstan, they are risking their lives to Russia and that benefits us.”
At the end of the conversation, the scammer says: “Thank you, my friend. It was nice to see you again and I remember our first meeting with Lord Hague and Bernard and Lily Vie.”
The FCDO said it had made details of the exchange public amid fears it may have been “tampered with”.
The call was made by Russian pranksters using the code names “Vovan and Lexus” and appears to have lasted about 15 minutes.
The duo are well-known in Russia and have in the past claimed to have defrauded a number of politicians and celebrities, including Sir Elton John, US statesman John McCain, Prince Harry and JK Rowling.
The State Department said today that the call appeared to be a Russian information operation aimed at distracting from Moscow's war in Ukraine.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement: “We made public the fact that this call was made weeks ago to do the right thing and ensure that others were warned of the risk as early as possible.”
“The Foreign Minister assumed that it was a private telephone conversation with a Ukrainian politician.
“This is clearly Russian and consistent with standard information operations practices. Disinformation is a textbook Kremlin tactic to distract from the Kremlin's illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses committed there.”
A question about the authenticity of the video was not answered because Sky News has not independently verified it.
