Albin Kurti on Wednesday admitted that he had fallen prey to Russian pranksters who published a recording of one of them pretending to be Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in a video call with the Kosovo Prime Minister.

Moments after the video was published on Rumble.com, Kurti’s office issued a statement acknowledging the “unfortunate incident”. The 11-minute recording was made by well-known Russian comic impersonators Vovan and Lexus.

“This incident took place on February 11, shortly after the February 9 elections, during a period when Prime Minister Kurti was receiving numerous congratulatory messages and calls regarding the election results. Due to time constraints, it was not always possible to conduct thorough verification of each call,” Kurti’s office said.

“This unfortunate incident reinforces what we have long known: Russia is obsessed with Kosova and continues to target our country,” it added.

The conversation starts with one of the two Russian pranksters congratulating Kurti on his “greatest victory” in the February 9 elections.

In the video, Kurti complains of “a hybrid war against our government from early on”, which he says “mainly comes from Serbia and Russia and some of their elements within Kosovo”.

Kurti also mentions “the irrational promises of the opposition who were sort of flirting with the hybrid war”.

Asked about US President Trump’s decision to cut USAID funds and “especially about special Ambassador [Richard] Grenell”, Kurti recalled Trump’s former Balkan envoy Grenell’s alleged role in his previous government’s overthrow in March 2020.

“He was instrumental in overthrowing my government first time in 2020. I was the only government overthrown during pandemic and now he has been very much aligning with the opposition. He has a first-class award in Belgrade as a diplomat. It’s not OK to receive such an order from an authoritarian country and to pretend to be neutral,” Kurti said.

When Kurti refers in the call to Grenell’s sexual orientation, his interlocutor interrupts to say: “You know I am gay?” Kurti replies: “No, I don’t.”

Kurti’s office said that during the campaign for the February 9 parliamentary elections, “Sputnik Serbia and Russia Today (RT) published over 60 fake news and disinformation articles, interfering in our democratic process, as documented by the EU Election Observation Mission.

“While we regret that Prime Minister Albin Kurti was targeted by a prank call, this episode reaffirms Prime Minister Kurti’s principled and consistent stance on key issues, whether in public or private conversations,” the statement said.

Vovan and Lexus are well-known in Russia and have previously prank-called various international politicians including Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Giorgia Meloni and Andrzej Duda, as well as public figures like Prince Harry and Elton John.