By Metamorphosis Foundation, for Global Voices
This story originally appeared on Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement.
On July 7, Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev spoke to journalists in Skopje about a YouTube video in which he appears talking to two Russian pranksters pretending to be the former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The Prime Minister said he was deceived by “well organized and inventive structure, which is directed at persons and countries that are aligned towards Euro-Atlantic aspirations in order to cause damage.”
The conversations with the self-described pranksters Vladimir Kuznecov (Vovan) and Aleksej Stolarov (Lexus) happened in August 2018, January 2019, and April 2019, and in them Zaev openly talks about current political affairs such as the border between Kosovo and Serbia, autocephaly of Macedonian Orthodox Church, and EU integrations. He also gives out the phone number of the former US Assistant Secretary.
The PM said during a press conference on July 7:
Zaev emphasized that he wasn’t the first the victim of this kind of mockery: the French President Emanuel Macron, the former British Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and musician Elton John have all been duped by the same group.
He added that he will not resign because of the incident as he didn’t reveal any state secrets in the conversations — he has only repeated publicly known opinions, he said. Finally, he said that similar incidents have happened in other states with much stricter security systems.
Hristijan Mickoski, the leader of the largest opposition party, the right-wing populist VMRO-DPMNE, responded to the PM’s comments by saying that, with a scandal such as this, Zaev should have resigned and called for early elections.
On social media
Supporters of the VMRO-DPMNE, the Russia-backed party that ruled North Macedonia from 2006 to 2017 (a period of sharp democratic decline), had a field day ridiculing Zaev after he made the comments above.
Many of those accounts are anonymous and regularly amplify each other’s content. In November 2018, a former VMRO-DPMNE official revealed the party had and was still actively running a “troll farm.”
Among those accounts, there are a few real users, such as the former Minister of Culture Ganka Samoilova, who shared the controversial Russian video with a comment:
Пред извесно време го замолив да не зборува англиски. Сега го замолувам ДА НЕ ЗБОРУВА ВООПШТО!!!https://t.co/pvL3TuMamm
— Ganka Cvetanova (@gankacv) July 8, 2019
Some time ago I asked [Zaev] to refrain from speaking English [without a translator]. I now ask him to not talk at all!!!
Some netizens who are not necessarily associated with the now-opposition right-wing party have also reacted. The official profile of TV comic personality Mile Panika tweeted:
Ни ја земаа работата. Ќе си дадам оставка.
— Миле Паника (@Mile_Panika) July 9, 2019
They took our job. I am about to resign.
Some commentators agreed with the PM’s position considering the case a serious security breach rather than an inoffensive prank. Blogger Jane Gjorgjioski wrote on Facebook:
Others have contributed to the debate by sharing a story by BBC Monitoring from 2018 on how the two famous pranksters practically only target Kremlin foes while receiving ample airtime and support in Russia’s state TV channels.
Глупости, кога Русија правела вакви работи, кога…
Fake news машинеријата гази, а ние како лакоми бебиња ја голтаме наеднаш. https://t.co/3Ffz98UgXP
— ПолитичкиНекоректен (@nekorektniot) July 9, 2019
Some people dismiss this as Russian government ploy, claiming they have nothing to do with this…
Meanwhile the fake news machinery is doing its job, and we like greedy babies swallow its products whole. https://t.co/3Ffz98UgXP
Another Twitter user cheekily referred to the content of the conversation, which they think isn’t actually that controversial in the first place:
Толку е јак муабетов на русиве што чекаа година да помине референдум, промена на име, за да го пуштат СРЕД ЛЕТО на полноќ, за вмроовци да бидат први на тајм со руска бомба паф
оставка оставка оставка оставка оставка оставка оставка оставка оставка милошоски бе аман
— V!DanaDsgn (@VidanaDeSign) July 9, 2019
The talk with the Russians is ‘so explosive’ that they waited for a year, allowing the referendum and the name change to pass, so they can release it IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER at midnight, benefiting the VMRO profiles who got top spots for the day on [Twitter aggregator] Time.mk list with this Russian bombshell.
Resignation resignation resignation resignation resignation resignation resignation resignation resignation OK Miloshoski keep it cool.
Analyst Dragan Alcinov tried to point out a silver lining of the embarrassing incident, quoting a lyric from a historic song that is widely employed as a metaphor for hypocrites:
Колку и да е ова невкусна шега, сепак од објавените разговори може да се забележи дека кај Заев нема голема разлика меѓу она што го зборува насамо и она што го зборува во јавност.
За разлика од едни други ,,лицем светци, срцем в’лци”.
— Алчинов (@DAlcinov) July 9, 2019
Even though this joke is in a very bad taste, the published conversations show that there’s no big difference in Zaev’s discourse between how he speaks in private and how he speaks in public.
Compared to certain others who show “the faces of saints, but have the hearts of wolves.”