Dhe Russian “comedians” Vovan and Lexus became known to a larger audience in Germany at the end of June after they duped European politicians with fake video calls. They pretended to be Volodymyr Selenskyj or Vitali Klitschko via video snippet montage. Vovan and Lexus also called the Berlin City Hall. Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey initially believed she was talking to her Kiev counterpart, Vitali Klitschko.
Now on Thursday, seven weeks later, the Russian “comedians” published a nearly nine-minute compilation of the conversation with Giffey on Rutube. A version with English subtitles can be found on the YouTube channel “Stars Save the Earth”, which links to Greta Thunberg’s social media profiles, but mainly publishes videos from Vovan and Lexus, whose real name is Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov and funded their channel on Rutube Gazprom. The video shows excerpts from the conversation with Franziska Giffey. Only she can be seen, from the off a man’s voice that doesn’t sound like Vitali Klitschko asks questions in Russian. A spokeswoman for the Senate confirmed the authenticity of the excerpts.
There’s no question of humor or satire, unless you find cynical remarks about Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine funny. Instead, the Russian dubbing in the Russian version and the English subtitles in the subtitled version often deviate from Giffey’s statements – due to a chronological shift or incorrect translation. From one minute, nineteen seconds, the question is asked whether the Berlin Senate has enough money to help those who have fled from the Ukraine. Giffey replies in the excerpt shown, “Of course we also have several thousand places in our state shelters to accommodate people”. The English subtitle and the dubbing read: “One of the problems we are facing at the moment is the resettlement of refugees on our territory.”
Giffey then says, “We do this above all in shared accommodation,” followed by “the difficulty is actually finding living space, because apartments in Berlin are scarce anyway.” These sentences are translated as: “On the one hand, we see socially committed citizens who [den Geflüchteten] help by providing their own living space. Some refugees stay with their friends. We offer housing for some, in neighboring federal states, especially for the simple reason that housing is scarce in Berlin.”
The entirety of the excerpts shows that translated terms and sentences exist, but have often been taken out of context or put in a different order. When Giffey is asked if they will help Ukraine, with the support of the Ukrainian police, to track down Ukrainian men to bring them to the front lines, the English subtitle says: “Of course, I’ll record it for myself [„I will point this down for myself“], I will bring this up at the federal level, but the federal government will then have to create a separate solution for its part.” At the federal level.” When it comes to bringing women and elderly refugees back to Ukraine and to the front lines, Giffey asks if she understands correctly that Klitschko’s priority is bringing the refugees back. The translation reproduces it more or less verbatim here, as well as at the end, where the fake Klitschko asks for help in organizing a Christopher Street Day in Kyiv.
Franziska Giffey announced on Thursday that she had now spoken to the real Vitali Klitschko in order to counter the fake of Vovan and Lexus with something truthful. They talked for an hour about the situation in Ukraine, the energy supply, the situation of Ukrainian refugees in Germany and about fake video calls and Russian propaganda. In a short video sequence that Giffey published on Twitter, she says at the beginning of the conversation: “So, I hope, dear Vitali Klitschko, that this time I’m talking to the real one.” Whereupon he says he believes, “I’m the real one “.
