Seven weeks after a fake video call with a fake Vitali Klitschko, Berlin's governing mayor Franziska Giffey spoke to the real mayor of Kiev.
The SPD politician announced this on Thursday evening on Twitter.
Accordingly, the video switch was about the situation in Ukraine and in Kyiv in view of the Russian war of aggression.
Other topics included the energy supply and the situation of Ukrainian refugees in Germany.
The dangers of propaganda and fake video calls were also discussed.
On June 24, Giffey had video chatted with a person who looked like Klitschko but wasn't Klitschko.
A few days later, the pro-Kremlin satirists “Vovan and Lexus” confessed to the ARD magazine “Contrasts” that they were behind the fake call.
On Thursday, the Russian duo released alleged excerpts from the conversation.
According to Senate spokeswoman Lisa Frerichs, Giffey was now connected to the real Klitschko for around an hour.
Both exchanged accordingly in German, Klitschko speaks the language very well.
In a short video sequence that Giffey tweeted, she says at the beginning of the conversation with a laugh: "Well, I hope, dear Vitali Klitschko, that this time I'm talking to the real one." He first answers jokingly that he doesn't know, but then adds: "I think I'm the real one.
I think so." Giffey replies, "So you're talking to the real one, too."
The Berlin Senate considers published excerpts to be genuine
“Vovan and Lexus” had recently published an almost nine-minute and obviously edited sequence on several Internet platforms, which is supposed to show excerpts from the conversation with the wrong Klitschko in June.
You can only see Giffey, who responds to questions from the alleged Klitschko, who speaks Russian and not Ukrainian or German.
The person you are talking to cannot be seen, so the video does not provide any clues as to the digital manipulation technique used to create the fake Klitschko.
"As far as we can see, the excerpts are real," said Senate spokeswoman Frerichs about the sequences.
The publication, which was first reported by the "Spiegel", was "taken note of".
The Senate Chancellery made the fake phone call, of which there is no official recording, public on the same day.
According to Giffey, after a while, various questions from her counterpart had given her doubts as to whether she was connected to the real Klitschko.
The conversation then ended prematurely.
Meanwhile, it has become known that the mayors of Vienna, Madrid, Budapest and Warsaw have also been tricked in a similar way.
Russian disinformation instead of humor
The voice of the supposed Klitschko, which is known to many people in Germany, does not sound like the original in the video sequences now posted by the comedians.
Among other things, Giffey provides information about the admission of Ukrainian war refugees.
In the alleged documentation of their prank, the “Vovan and Lexus” also show that they are often more concerned with disinformation than with humor.
The published interview excerpts contain no evidence for the pro-Kremlin comedians' assertion that Giffey confirmed that there were "serious problems with the arriving refugees".
Frerichs denied that Giffey said anything like that in the video call.
Also striking: subtitles for the published excerpts do not always correctly reflect Giffey's statements in the conversation.
The published excerpts from the conversation also deal with the fake Klitschko's request that Berlin support the organization of a kind of Christopher Street Day in Kyiv.
Giffey said Berlin is Europe's rainbow capital and could definitely offer advice here.
Shortly after the fake phone call, she explained that this topic had made her suspicious.
"In view of the war, that was more than strange," she said at the time.
The connection was then terminated or broken off.
The fake caused a stir because the Berlin Senate Chancellery initially presented it as a deepfake, i.e. as manipulation with the help of artificial intelligence.
But experts have expressed doubts about this account and said that Giffey could also have been tricked by simpler means.
For example, manipulation using older video excerpts showing Klitschko comes into question.
The scammers reportedly used an email address similar to that of the Kyiv mayor to initiate the conversation.
Apparently, nobody in Berlin noticed that the request for a meeting was not received from an official Ukrainian government account.