Fake phone call
Navalny team exposes son of Kremlin spokesman Peskov
The son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been exposed in a phone call as a slacker. photo
© Alexei Nikolsky/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP/dpa
With a fake phone call, the team around the opposition Alexei Navalny wants to show that the Russian elite remains unaffected by the partial mobilization. The son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov falls into their trap.
According to the team led by the imprisoned opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov was exposed as a slacker with a fake telephone call.
An employee of Navalny’s team pretended to be an employee of a Moscow military district command that is supposed to enforce the call-up of reservists after the partial mobilization ordered by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. According to the published telephone recording, 32-year-old Nikolai Choles (Peskov) said he would not turn up and let the question be decided at another level.
“If you know that I’m Mr. Peskow, then you should understand that it’s not entirely correct that I’ll be there. In short, I’ll regulate it on a different level,” he said accordingly. When asked again whether he would be at the office at 10 a.m. the next morning, he emphasized: “Believe me, neither you nor I need that.”
Peskow tried to explain
Navalny’s team rejected statements by Kremlin spokesman Peskov that the call had been cut. It was a live phone call on a show, it said. According to Russian media, Peskov had stated that his son did not want to withdraw from the service. According to the published recording, Peskow junior said that he was basically ready to defend his homeland. But he doesn’t want to go to Ukraine.
The caller reminds him that Putin himself ordered the mobilization for the war in Ukraine: “If Vladimir Vladimirovich tells me to go there, then I will go there.” He is then instructed that Putin cannot call each of the 300,000 reservists himself. Peskow’s son says he’s not like everyone else. Kremlin opponent Navalny had previously complained that Putin was throwing ordinary Russian citizens into the “meat grinder” of war, while the elite remained unharmed.