Kremlin ‘gave blessing to Boris prank phone call’

A PRANK call to Boris Johnson has triggered a diplomatic row after the Kremlin was accused of being behind the “desperate” stunt.

The Foreign Secretary was caught out by a Russian prankster who kept him on the phone for 18 minutes by pretending to be the new prime minister of Armenia.

Mr Johnson unwittingly discussed president Vladimir Putin and the Salisbury nerve agent attack before he rumbled the hoax and ended the call.

The Foreign Office believes the pranksters, who have previously caught out other politicians, made the call with the blessing of the Kremlin to

‘It is tragic to see a major international power reduced to failed pranks usually only seen on Trigger Happy TV’

“save face” after it was shamed over the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

A recording of the call, which happened last week, was put online the day after Ms Skripal made her first public statement since the incident, in which she said she had been the victim of an attempted assassination.

It was made public just as Dutch investigators revealed evidence that a Russian military missile shot down flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.

Alexei Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, who call themselves Lexus and Vovan, made the call to Mr Johnson. Their previous victims include Sir Elton John, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish premier, and Rick Perry, the US energy secretary.

They are understood to have convinced the Europe minister Sir Alan Duncan in a previous call that one of them was Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian premier. Sir Alan then arranged for the “prime minister” to call Mr Johnson’s private office. Speaking in English with a Russian accent, the caller asked Mr Johnson for advice on what he should say to Mr Putin when he met him, as well as discussing the Skripal case.

Mr Johnson responded by saying that “we will continue to tighten the squeeze on some of the oligarchs who surround Putin”, adding: “You throw a stone in Kensington and you’ll hit an oligarch.” He also said Britain was “almost 100 per cent sure” Russia was behind the Salisbury poisonings and said: “If I have a message to Putin, it’s that we don’t want a cold war but we do want to see an improvement in the way Russia behaves.”

A senior diplomatic source said: “This seems to be the latest desperate attempt by the Kremlin to save face after it was internationally shamed in the wake of the Skripal attack.

“Boris rumbled them pretty quickly and ended the call. It is tragic to see a major international power reduced to failed pranks you would usually only see on Trigger Happy TV.”

The pranksters have previously denied links to Russian security services.

Mr Johnson believed he was answering a routine call to congratulate a new national leader.

Sources insisted he quickly realised something was wrong and asked questions to verify the caller’s identity before ending the conversation.

Details of the call were first published in the pro-kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, in which Stolyarov said Mr Johnson had been a “smart diplomat, an intellectual” who did not fall into the trap of making indiscreet comments. He added that it was “probably the first time the person we talked to was not a fool”.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Obviously, this shouldn’t have happened and an investigation is under way to determine the circumstances around this call and to make sure that this does not happen again.”