Kremlin Jesters: How Two Russian Pranksters Embarrass World Leaders for Putin

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4 March 2026. Somewhere in the United States, Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last Shah, joins a Zoom video call. On the other side of the screen are two men presenting themselves as advisers to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. One is in a jacket and tie with the classic sober look of a bureaucrat. The other is a little more, shall we say, peculiar. He introduces himself as Adolf, has a small black moustache under his nose, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, and speaks with a fairly noticeable Russian accent.

The video call lasts quite a while. Reza Pahlavi, 65, self-proclaimed candidate to lead a future Iranian transitional government under the aegis of the United States and Israel, notices nothing strange or unconventional. In reality, what he has just taken part in is an undercover operation of tragicomic character.

This issue is written by Luigi and edited by Sacha.

Adolf and the Prince

Reza Pahlavi, son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah deposed by the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, has lived in exile in the United States since he was 17. Since then, he has spent his life building relationships with anyone who might help him return to Iran, preferably after someone else had done the dirty work of toppling the Islamic Republic, led first by Khomeini and then by Khamenei.

For months, Pahlavi has publicly declared that he is in contact with Israeli and American officials and that he is ready to lead a transitional government in Iran. Donald Trump himself, during a meeting at the White House with German Chancellor Merz, had floated his name as a possible post-regime leader, albeit with little enthusiasm, "someone from inside might be more appropriate". Given all this, it was easy to imagine that Pahlavi would want to speak with Merz, or with someone very close to him, to advance his long-standing cause.

So two Russian comedians, Vovan and Lexus, contacted him posing as advisers to the German Chancellor. The call begins in an orderly fashion. The first interlocutor, the sober one, leads the conversation formally, asking Pahlavi for his reading of the situation in Iran, the role of the United States, and the prospects for regime change. Pahlavi answers willingly; it is, after all, his favourite subject. Then the second man enters the scene. He calls himself Adolf, sports a Hitler moustache, and presents himself as the Chancellor's "best friend". "Adolf" reveals to him that Germany is ready to join the military coalition led by the United States and Israel against the ayatollahs' regime. "Our intelligence is ready to bomb Tehran," he says. Pahlavi receives the news with satisfaction: "The more countries we have in coalition to attack the regime in Iran, the better it is. It's a welcome point for us to have more people joining in this crusade."

In the minutes that follow, Pahlavi explains with a certain casualness that he is already in contact with Israeli officials (Netanyahu included) and with Americans, and that once the regime has fallen, the priority should be to neutralise the Revolutionary Guards. He then adds that he is ready to return to Iran to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the Islamic Republic. A transitional government under his leadership, he says, would be well received by Tel Aviv.

The most grotesque moment comes towards the end. "Adolf" tells Pahlavi that his grandfather, meaning, in all likelihood, that other Adolf, had met his father in Tehran in the 1940s while serving in the German army. An absurd remark, historically incoherent, delivered by a man dressed as Hitler with a clearly Russian accent. Pahlavi's response: "That's very interesting, good to know."

The call is cut short when Justin Forsyth, Pahlavi's adviser and former CEO of Save the Children (who resigned from UNICEF in 2018 following reports of inappropriate conduct with female employees dating back to 2011 and 2015), calls him away for another meeting. It is unclear whether Forsyth rescued his boss from embarrassment because he had by then spotted the trap, or whether Pahlavi genuinely had other engagements. What is certain is that, following the publication of his conversation with the two improbable emissaries of the German government, Pahlavi has yet to release a statement on the matter.

A Method Born Far from Mere Pranks

Vovan and Lexus, in their real names, are Vladimir Kuznetsov and Aleksei Stolyarov. They established themselves as a prankster duo in 2014, the very year Russia invaded Crimea. A report by the American cybersecurity firm Proofpoint analysed their methodology. First, they identify an opportunity, a summit, an imminent bilateral meeting, or a moment when their intended target is expecting to be contacted by a specific figure. Then they reach out to that target, presenting themselves as whatever they believe the person wants to see, and encourage them to speak as spontaneously as possible. Finally, once the target's guard has dropped, they ask their most slippery questions. The result is then edited to highlight the most embarrassing lines and distributed on Telegram, Rutube (the Russian-language YouTube), and Twitter/X.

The Italian case is perhaps the most striking of all, more so even than what happened to Pahlavi just days ago. It unfolded in September 2023, during the week of the United Nations General Assembly. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was holding back-to-back meetings with African leaders as an integral part of her foreign policy strategy. The moment was perfect for Vovan and Lexus to present themselves as members of the African Union Commission. As Euronews reconstructed, Vovan and Lexus secured a thirteen-minute call with Meloni. The Italian Prime Minister proceeded to speak with the two strangers not only about Africa, but also about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine: "I see that there is a lot of fatigue, if I have to say the truth, from all sides. We are near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out." Meloni, who in public backed Ukraine without qualification, told two self-styled representatives of the African Union Commission that she wanted to find a way out of the war.

Just one year later, in June 2024, David Cameron, then British Foreign Secretary, was convinced he was on a video call with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Cameron was filmed away from his office, in casual clothes, leaning against a wall, while revealing to two strangers the details of a private dinner with Trump in which he had persuaded him to push Republicans to vote for military aid to Ukraine. Cameron told his interlocutors, in explicit terms, that Ukraine would not receive an invitation to NATO at the July summit and that Zelensky should not complain.

But the list of Vovan and Lexus's "victims" is very long. In 2018, then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was convinced he was speaking with the Armenian Prime Minister, revealing his certainties about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal (the former GRU military intelligence officer who was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2018); former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was convinced she was talking to Poroshenko, confirming that the Minsk agreements had given Ukraine time to strengthen its defensive capabilities; former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was convinced he was speaking with environmental activist Greta Thunberg; the mayors of Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest were all caught in a single operation in 2022, convinced they were video-calling Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

TA499: The Two "Threat Actors" Close to the Kremlin

Vovan and Lexus officially deny working for the Kremlin. They have maintained this line for years, with the same ease with which they nonetheless admit an entire range of other things. In a 2016 interview with The Moscow Times, Vladimir Kuznetsov said verbatim: "We'd like to meet Putin if anything. We don't want to be a weapon in the hands of Russia's enemies." When asked about alleged contacts with the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence service, Kuznetsov replies that his sources for the victims' phone numbers are "friends" and then, laughing, adds: "FSBniki", meaning "friends of the secret services".

In the same interview, he admits that he and his partner would never prank Putin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, or Patriarch Kirill. In short, these phone pranks are acceptable only when they embarrass the Kremlin's political opponents or reveal circumstances that are convenient to Russian geopolitical interests.

Since 2021, cybersecurity firm Proofpoint has labeled the duo as TA499, a threat actor aligned with Russia that conducts systematic campaigns to obtain compromising recordings from North American and European officials. "While Vovan and Lexus describe themselves as 'pranksters and comedians,'" Proofpoint writes, "multiple governments and officials consider them Russian state-sponsored malicious actors."

Over the years, however, the clues pointing to their role as organic agents of the Kremlin have accumulated. Vovan and Lexus have a regular programme on NTV, the Russian state television channel. Meduza has noted that "for some reason, their pranks always seem to serve the interests of Russian authorities." In 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova presented them with a secure government phone as a prize during a public ceremony, saying: "You have conquered the phones of so many politicians and world figures. I brought you that [phone] that's called 'government communications.'"

And then there is the definitive twist. On 3 July 2024, at a ceremony in the Kremlin, Vladimir Kuznetsov and Aleksei Stolyarov received the Order of Friendship, a Russian state decoration awarded for "special merits in strengthening peace, friendship, cooperation and mutual understanding among peoples." RIA Novosti published photographs of the two at the ceremony, with decorations on their chests and champagne glasses in their hands.

But the darkest side of their activity is not directed at Western leaders. Novaya Gazeta Europe has documented that in recent years the duo has extended part of its delegitimisation activities against Russian intellectuals and artists who oppose the war or who are inconvenient to the Kremlin. In December 2023, for example, they called Russian writer Boris Akunin, a well-known opponent of Putin, posing as Volodymyr Zelensky, tricking him into making statements that branded him a supporter of Ukraine. The consequences of this "prank" were rather concrete. A State Duma deputy used the recording to label Akunin an "enemy to be destroyed", and so the writer was added to the register of terrorists and extremists. The leading Russian publisher suspended sales of all his books, and in July 2025, Akunin was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in a high-security prison. Boris Akunin, who has lived in exile in London since 2014, commented on the affair: "Terrorists declared me a terrorist." It would have been gratifying if undercover operations as well-organised as these had only one purpose: a prank to mock those who hold power, rather than, as in this case, propaganda and repression on behalf of a regime.

Until the next Debrief,

Luigi and Sacha

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