Artificial Intelligence

Taoiseach ‘played along’ with Russian hoaxsters on prank video call after becoming suspicious

Footage emerged this week of a video call of the incident that took place a couple of months ago

Leo Varadkar: “It became very quickly very obvious that there was something afoot of course and there was something wrong.” Picture: PA

Leo Varadkar has claimed he “played along” with a prank phone call by two Russian comedians posing as African diplomats.

In a 13-minute prank call posted to Rumble, the video platform that describes itself as “immune to cancel culture”, the Taoiseach spoke about the possibility of a United Ireland, the Russian Ukraine conflict and Irish neutrality.

Varadkar said believed he was meeting with African diplomats but was actually speaking to Russian comedians Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, becoming the latest victim to the hoax which has duped a variety of high-profile politicians, including Giorgia Meloni, Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson.