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Russian Agents Called Top U.K. Ministers With Fake PM in ‘Disinformation’ Campaign, Officials Say

Downing Street says Cabinet ministers, including Britain’s defense secretary, spent eight or nine minutes on a call with someone pretending to be the Ukraine PM.

Three British Cabinet ministers received hoax calls from purported Ukrainian officials in what Downing Street said was part of a Kremlin disinformation campaign. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace revealed last week he had spent eight or nine minutes on a Microsoft Teams call with someone pretending to be the Ukrainian prime minister, Denis Shmyhal, before getting suspicious and ending the call. A Downing Street spokesman, Max Blain, said Monday that two other ministers, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, had received similar calls. “The Russian state was responsible for the hoax telephone calls made to U.K. ministers last week,” he said. If successful, the calls could have been doctored for propaganda purposes, Blain said, adding that “disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook.”