https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-prank-call/?utm_term=.1544d022fff3&tid=sm_tw
Listen to Russian pranksters trick Rick Perry into a conversation about pig manure
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. July 25 at 5:03 PM
Rick Perry, U.S. secretary of energy, listens during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in June. (Zach Gibson/Bloomberg)
It was a winding, wonkish and occasionally obscure conversation about foreign coal exploration, natural-gas pipelines and pig manure as a power source.
But only one of the men on the line — Energy Secretary Rick Perry — held sway over his nation’s energy policy. On the other end of the conversation were Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetsov and Alexei “Lexus” Stolyarov, who had just added Perry to their list of high-profile hoax victims.
“Secretary Perry is the latest target of two Russian pranksters,” DOE Spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said in an email to The Washington Post. “These individuals are known for pranking high level officials and celebrities, particularly those who are supportive of an agenda that is not in line with their governments. In this case, the energy security of Ukraine.”
During the conversation, which was posted in its entirety on Vesti, a Russian news site, Perry was convinced he was talking to the Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who appears to speak through a translator. Perry talked about a potential pipeline across the Baltic sea for Russian gas, cyber attacks on the U.S. power grid, natural-gas exploration in Ukraine and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.
“I hope that stepping away from the Paris accord will not have any negative impact with our relationship with the Ukraine,” Perry said. “We tried to divorce the politics from this and really just let our record stand, one that I’m very proud of.”
He also talked about a meeting scheduled for August where they’d let American business executives talk about extracting oil and natural gas in Ukraine.
“What we have seen in Texas is the great increase of productivity, particularly in shale gas because of hydraulic fracturing and the directional drilling,” Perry said.
Perhaps the only giveaway about the true nature of the call was a statement the “Ukrainian prime minister” made about a new biofuel invented by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, according to the Pravda Report newspaper.
The fuel was made from a mix of home-brewed alcohol and pig manure.
Perry said he’d like to get more information about the “scientific development.”
The pranksters seemed to get past Perry’s defenses with opportunistic timing.
On June 20, Perry hosted Groysman and his delegation at the Department of Energy, a meeting that was widely reported in the Ukrainian press, according to the DOE.
Three weeks later, the department received a request for a phone follow-up with the Ukrainian prime minster. That phone call was bogus. So was the lengthier call with Perry that followed on July 19.
[In new Princess Diana documentary, her sons recall a rushed final call they’ll never forget]
The pranksters say they have a victims’ list that includes several high-profile names: singer Elton John, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Croatian prime minister, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The rumor debunking website Snopes has said some of those prank claims are unproven, and points out that if the pranksters can impersonate one person on the phone, they can easily impersonate two.