Two British ministers, the victims of attempts at deception, spoke for several minutes over a video link with the alleged Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal.

Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace said on Twitter that he eventually became suspicious and ended the call.

Home Secretary Priti Patel then said via the same channel that "this happened to her earlier in the week".

The Daily Telegraph reported that the government suspected Russian intelligence was responsible for the calls.

The aim could therefore have been to obtain sensitive information or to use the calls for propaganda purposes.

Jochen Buchsteiner

Political correspondent in London.

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Wallace was visiting Poland when he was put through to the Microsoft Teams conversation.

The appointment was "arranged in an orderly manner," Wallace said -- via a government agency and an email on behalf of a Ukrainian embassy employee.

Wallace said his interviewer, posing in front of a Ukrainian flag, looked and spoke like the prime minister, although he had never met him in person.

Only "increasingly ridiculous questions" about security-related aspects aroused his suspicion.

The man wanted to know whether Great Britain would send warships to the Black Sea, whether Ukraine should give up its goal of NATO membership and whether Kyiv should be granted nuclear weapons in the event of a security pact.

Patel has not yet provided any information about the duration or content of their conversation.

Wallace launched an internal investigation.

"He asked some pretty tough questions to the relevant department about how that could have happened," Defense Secretary James Heappey said.

This "should not have happened".

Meanwhile, the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom revoked the broadcasting license of the Russian television channel RT with immediate effect.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had previously urged a quick decision.

An RT representative on Friday criticized the UK for "suppressing alternative voices".

The license ban does not affect the texts that RT distributes online.