The Russian state was responsible for hoax calls to Ben Wallace and Priti Patel, pretending to be the Ukrainian prime minister, Downing Street has said.
In its first statement attributing blame for the video calls, No 10 said it believed Russian state actors were responsible, without giving more details on who linked to the Kremlin had been identified as being behind the attempts.
It is understood there are fears in Whitehall that Russia could release doctored quotes of their comments for propaganda purposes. Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, was also unsuccessfully targeted.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “The Russian state was responsible for the hoax telephone calls made to UK ministers last week.
“This is standard practice for Russian information operations and disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook to try to distract from their illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses being committed there.
“We are seeing a string of distraction stories and outright lies from the Kremlin, reflecting Putin’s desperation as he seeks to hide the scale of the conflict and Russia’s failings on the battlefield.”
Wallace has publicly acknowledged he had been targeted shortly after his call on Thursday in an attempt to get ahead of any attempt by Moscow to circulate footage from it. An investigation has been launched into how it happened and a cross-Whitehall review is looking at tightening up security procedures.
The caller who got through to Wallace was pretending to be the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal.
There have been many similar hoax calls in the past but not attributed to the Russian state. In May 2018, Boris Johnson – then the foreign secretary – talked about international relations and rude poetry with a hoax caller who pretended to be the Armenian prime minister.
In 2015, it emerged that the authorities had been the target of two hoax calls. In one, an impostor claiming to be the head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, managed to get through to the then prime minister, David Cameron, on his mobile. In the other, a caller rang GCHQ and managed to obtain Hannigan’s mobile phone number.