Berlin Mayor Spoke for 30 Minutes with Impersonator Posing as Kyiv Mayor

Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey raised doubts during a video call with a person claiming to be Kyiv's real mayor Vitali Klitschko, as reported by Deutsche Welle on Friday, June 24.

“Giffey’s interlocutor resembled Klitschko; the first quarter-hour of the conversation raised no suspicions,” said Lisa Frericks, press secretary of the Berlin Senate. The alleged Klitschko “was interested in how we are managing the large number of Ukrainian refugees, how many there are; it was entirely normal conversation, as we had expected,” Frericks added. However, several topics later arose that caused Giffey to have doubts, according to Frericks.

“At one point, our interlocutor referred to a conversation with Ukraine's ambassador in Germany, Andriy Melnyk, and asked how we feel about the fact that so many Ukrainians in Berlin are trying to fraudulently obtain social benefits,” she continued. “He also requested that German authorities assist in returning young people to Ukraine to send them to the front. That last topic raised complete astonishment; he asked whether we could provide advisory assistance to Kyiv regarding holding a pride parade. That seemed more than strange considering that there is currently a war ongoing in Ukraine,” Frericks said.

Following this, the video call was disconnected. The Berlin Senate office believes that Giffey fell victim to a digital manipulation. “Apparently, we encountered a deep fake. There was no sign that this was not a real person. The person sitting in front of us looked and moved exactly like Klitschko,” Frericks said.

Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk confirmed that Giffey’s interlocutor was not Klitschko. The Berlin police are investigating the incident. On the same day, Madrid’s Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida also spoke via video call with the imaginary Klitschko but quickly suspected that something was wrong and ended the conversation.