KREMLIN CALLED – MEDDLING INTO NORTH MACEDONIA’S PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 2020

Just a few days prior to the Election Day scheduled for the 15th of July, well-known Russian telephone pranksters, Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Aleksey Stoylarov (Lexus), released a telephone prank from November 2019 with the leader od SDSM, Zoran Zaev (who was also Prime Minister at the time when the call happened).

Commenting on the event, the advisor to the Prime Minister, Marjan Zabrcanec, then anounced that they have exposed a hybrid attack aimed at the Prime Minister, in which the identity of Greta Tunberg was misused. The telephone conversation in which the identity of Greta Tunberg and her father was misued, was released only recently, on 8th of July, on the YouTube channel of the pranksters. The very next day, on 9th of July, Zaev stated that they knew the phone call was from a fake Greta, and that all he talked about was in line with the strategic interests of the country. He said that they have also talked with Greta’s parents, who issued an official reaction at the time when the supposed call happened.

The most important part from the whole conversation is 3:19 – 3:47, where the “father of Greta” says to Zaev “you also should fight, I think you have many difficulties and I know that it seems you have elections in spring, and we could help you in PR issues…and we will support you and make good advertising among the population before elections (laughing)”. This part shows a clear malicious intention to use the telephone conversation for election purposes, in this case the early parlimentary elections in North Macedonia, and this is what makes it relevant in the current context. Obviously, as they planned, they realised their intention and published the entire telephone conversation few days prior to the E-day, even though it was conduceted in November 2019.

The prank is ill-intended, it is an attempt to spite someone, it is premeditated, planned and prepared in order to cause damage to someone (even though it is made to look as a lighthearted joke). And (in the contemporary context) pranking is usually public, in order to damage the reputation of the pranked, to expose them as someone gullible, or at least not wiser than the pranksters, who outsmart them (the unsuccessful attempts are certainly not disclosed). It is not a joke, it is not “hahaha” funny, it is mischievous, a trap set for someone, in order to dupe them, ridicule them, regardless of whether it is in the spirit of friendship or enmity. But anyhow, it is done with spite, to cause spite. That is not what “joking” is.

The tactics that these Russian pranksters are using include misusing identities from somebody with whom their target is willing to speak, such as officials from a friendly country. In the case of North Macedonia, the first time it was the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, while the second time it was Greta Tunberg. Parts of the conversation with the fake Poroshenko were published by the Russian pranksters in July, 2019. The aim of such activities is to extract certain quotes from the targets and demonstrate ineptitude of the institutions of the targeted country, ultimately undermining public trust.

In spite of the huge citizens’ support for the country’s integration in NATO and EU, Russia was strongly oposing efforts undertaken by the country to advance these goals, including the historic agreement between Greece and North Macedonia to end a decades-long dispute over the name “Macedonia”. An excellent analysis entitled “Russian interference in North Macedonia: A view Before the Elections” was recently published by Bellincat.

The telephone conversation was published on the FB profile of Vladimir Kuznecov (pranker Vovan) on 8 July, at 20:36, while the first one that published it on MKD social media is Milenko Nedelkovski, at 20.40. Milienko Nedelkovski is a pro-Russian nationalist, who during these elections regularly uses hate speech targeting pro-Western women politicians.  From there it was overtaken by a FB page called MAJTAP (JOKE), with more than 30,000 followers and 101,000 engagements only in the last week. What is interesting is that this anonymous page is administered by 21 people.

The first online portal that published the “news” was the Hungarian-owned Republika, with highly manipulative headline: “He attacks Macron, closes the airport, and will allow migrants to settle here: The conversation between Zaev and fake Greta was published”. Later, the same portal another article with the headline: “Zaev: Macron is terrible man”, and a third, “’I even changed the name of the country’, Zaev brags in front of ‘Greta’”. This is their usual pattern of hyperproduction of stories related to a single event.

It was not the first time for Hungarian-backed portals to spread disinformation and manipulative narratives, thus inciting public fear and mistrust in democratic institutions and processess in North Macedonia. Facebook provides an especially impactful disinformation forum.  It is the most popular social network in North Macedonia, with 1.1 million users, with some of the most popular Facebook pages that exist in North Macedonia –  Onion.mk, I ♥ MACEDONIA, Smeenje do solzi, and Republika Makedonija. Managed anonymously and without attribution, in reality, they are key channels for dissimination of articles of the Hungarian outlets, thus leveraging their influence.

Nearly the same channels were used for the purouse of promoting the telephone prank.

With such an online developed infrastructure, it is easy to spread to disinformation and influence people’s opinions.

It is not the first time the pranskters to target high-profile Western politicians, and almost always there is a pattern which shows that their targets, or the countries they represent, are going through sensitive political processes, either internally or externaly. All of the actions were aimed at bringing discord between the states that are subject of their interest and of the questions they raise to their targets. In example, they treat topics such as Russia’s relations with targeted countries, sanctions against Russia, sanctions against Iran, Montenegro’s membership in NATO, the referendum in Catalonia etc. Their questions or telephone pranks are far from jokes, as they themselves call them.

The malicious intentions also can be seen in their public statements. While doing pranks all around the Western democracies, they have never pranked a high-profile Russian politician, claiming that they would never bring Russia to a state of destabilization. Additionaly, in an interview for The Guardian, the so-called comedians stated that they will never prank Putin, as they do not want to harm their country, emphasizing that they would not do anything that would help the enemies of Russia. Furthemore, in a statement for Moscow Times Kuznetsov said that “they would like to meet Putin” and that “they don’t want to be a weapon in the hands of Russia’s enemies”. On the question whether they were fine with being a weapon in the hands of the Kremlin, Kuznetsov said “Why not, if it’s in line with what we feel”. Considering all of their public statements, it is clear that they have firm pro-Kremlin position, and it is hard to believe their denials that they don’t work for Kremlin.

Beside the fact that some media and influencers tried to relativise the case, putting the blame to the security services, or to Zaev and his staff members, it is a fact that Zaev was not targeted as a leader of SDSM, but as a Prime Minister. Thus, it was the institutions, the people and the country that were targeted and laughed about. In addition, the telephone conversation was realeased just few days before the E-day, which represents clear meddling into North Macedonia’s parliamentary elections.

To put it in their words, they are harming this country.