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Berlin’s mayor Franziska Giffey was hooked up last Friday for a video meeting with colleague Klitschko from the Ukrainian capital. The former boxing world champion is a well-known figure in Germany.
It is also common knowledge that he speaks excellent both German and English. But no alarm bells rang, when Mayor Klitschko opened the conversation by pointing out that he was going to speak Russian – and that a translator was therefore needed.
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Rusty Russian
Anyone who has followed with just a little spruce knows that Vitali Klitschko prefers to speak Ukrainian to his countrymen – and that his Russian is, to put it mildly, rusty. Since no one smelled the fuse, it was off to a – at least initially – pleasant talk. This changed when the person on the screen asked Franziska Giffey if it was not time now to stop the extensive fraud that Ukrainian refugees in Berlin are committing against the social services offices. Shouldn’t she go out in public and discuss the “problem”?
The mayor of Berlin slipped away from the unpleasant – and grossly erroneous – statement. But when the alleged Klitschko also wanted help to force all young Ukrainians in Germany to return to perform their military duties to the fatherland, Giffey realized that there must be owls in the moss. And when “Klitschko” asked for practical assistance in arranging a Christopher Street Day in Kyiv – in the middle of the war – she was no longer in doubt. So the connection was cut.
Here you can read more comments from Asbjørn Svarstad
Asbjørn Svarstad
Asbjørn Svarstad started writing in the local newspaper Dagningen, was for a few years connected to VG. From 1987 Dagbladet’s stringer in Copenhagen. Has lived permanently in Berlin since 1996 where he has worked for various Scandinavian media. Works mostly with historical feature articles, political commentary and is an authorized guide in Sachsenhausen.
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To andre
An inquiry to the Ukrainian embassy in Berlin quickly made it clear that Klitschko had not spoken to anyone in Berlin that day. Further investigations revealed that also mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida a few days earlier had had a fake Klitschko on the thread. The call was interrupted after only a few minutes.
Things were worse for Michael Ludwig in Vienna. He had not only had a half-hour conversation with Kyiv’s mayor, but thought it had all been nice and useful, which he later announced on Twitter – with a picture of himself in front of the video screen with a fake Klitschko in the box.
German experts state that the three mayors were deceived using modern technology. To achieve so-called “deepfake”, algorithms are used that make both facial movements and voice seem natural. It is known that the Russian security service FSB has previously used the technology.
Russian trolling
The intention this time was obviously to misuse the recordings to sow distrust and to create difficulties in the relationship between Germans and Ukrainians. If the three mayors had been harmed for expressing themselves awkwardly – or even unwise – it would probably not have been long before the footage appeared on social media and on Russian propaganda platforms.
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Vitali Klitschko (50) takes the fuss with a smile. In a snippet to Bild Zeitung, he emphasizes that all requests for contact must go through public channels. “When it comes to conversations in English or German, I NEVER need a translator,” he smiles.
Without saying it outright, Vitali Klitschko recommends that the recipient first check if the email address is correct, should a request to meet for a chat tick in. All three mayors who went on the limb had negotiated in advance via an email address that was not even Ukrainian.
Admittedly, it was not Russian either. But still.
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