Pranksters played a prank on Yushchenko, forcing him to confess his love for Gorbachev over the phone

Well-known Russian pranksters under the pseudonyms Vovan and Lexus, on behalf of the former head of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, called ex-presidents of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk and Viktor Yushchenko.

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A video recording of the telephone conversation was published on the Russian NTV channel.

In particular, a man with a voice similar to Yushchenko’s spoke very warmly about Gorbachev.

“We wish you to have good health. We love you very much for what you have done. And therefore, with us, I mean Ukrainian presidents, you will always be in the respected front row. I sincerely say that we love you,” said the man whom NTV introduced as Yushchenko.

From a telephone dialogue between “Gorbachev” and Viktor Yushchenko:

“G: people were decisively left without anything. all generations have convened these values. They began to deal with this problem very early, believing that only they should solve it. 40 million people live in the country.

Yu: yes. if you looked at Donbass, it’s a disaster. It is impossible to imagine that such an industrial region could turn into a desert. 1 million 600 thousand refugees. Europe met 200 thousand Syrians. And then they all hung from the chandeliers. We do not have a single world program, not a single European program, neither in education, nor in medicine, nor in employment. Not for small lending, not for one... I hear a question on the agenda, let’s make a register of refugees. 2.5 years have passed, and we have only now decided to count how many of these unfortunate people there are. But about giving an answer to everyone who needs education, who needs a job, who needs housing - this is not even on the agenda. That's for later. The scale of the tragedy is unimaginable, the yardstick is that it is unimaginable. Such a disaster.

G: Do you communicate with Pyotr Alekseevich?

Yu: At first we communicated quite regularly, and we have the smallest trade union in Ukraine - the trade union of presidents. Three presidents. We agreed that in all events, that either we are together, or no one is alone... But it so happened that we have had no contact for 5 months. The meetings were postponed. Leonid Makarovich says to me: Victor, I beg you, go with him - tell me, I can’t change my shirts so quickly anymore, I’m already tired of it. This is not how you treat presidents. At the presidential level, such contacts are not permissible.

G: maybe they don’t give it to him? Maybe the Americans are asking not to let anyone in.

Yu: – I think that we have such a story that when 2014 happened, Yatsenyuk was the first to realize himself. And he had established contacts with the Americans. Somehow he made these contacts earlier, somehow upset these contacts, and when Poroshenko came later, he was left with Europe. And Poroshenko made great efforts to build relations with Europe. And it turned out that some are oriented to one pole and to the other pole. And the third to the third pole.

G: – external control. Once you set up this configuration, and now I hear that they are asking for some personnel changes, the prosecutor’s office. I’ll give you a billion, put your what’s-his-name there...your new prosecutor Lutsenko. Where have you seen the vice president (of the USA) speak?

Yu: yes, yes. Frankly speaking, I didn’t know of such precedents. It is humiliating and nationally humiliating to point the finger at the resolution of this issue publicly. And these things are very sensitive. when we talk about personnel and when today half of the ministers, you have to be either Georgian to be a minister, or Lithuanian. In no country, I don’t remember, that people, citizens of another country, are placed in a strategic position, and the minister is an industry strategist. That's it, MS. But how can we understand this? that we have knowledge problems? Not really. There is no such problem. Then what are we talking about. What are we talking about?".