The Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian special services of attempting to fake an interview allegedly given by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko to The New York Times newspaper.
“Russian special services continue their hybrid war against Ukraine. In a letter [which they claimed was written by Poroshenko] they provided journalists with phone numbers and email addresses of their agents, spoke to the journalists [pretending to be Poroshenko] and even read out [Poroshenko's] answers to questions over the phone,” Poroshenko's spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
In a copy of the letter, published by Tsegolko, Poroshenko expresses his regret over an article published by The New York Times about corruption in Ukraine and intends in a phone interview to convince the newspaper that these accusations were not fair.
The letter also said that Poroshenko was “prepared to answer all questions about the current situation in Ukraine, the fight against corruption and continuing Russian aggression.”
According to Tsegolko, the fake phone interview wasn't published because The New York Times journalists contacted Poroshenko's press service to check the authenticity of the letter.
On March 31, The New York Times published an editorial article, in which Ukraine was called “a corrupt swamp” and Poroshenko — “a product of the old system.” Poroshenko described the article as “part of hybrid warfare” waged against his country.
Later, he wrote on his Facebook page that his comment about the article was misinterpreted and said that there is still much to be done to overcome corruption in Ukraine.
