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Moscow dismisses YouTube recording of talk btw 2 Russian ambassadors as cynical fake

MOSCOW, April 04, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed as a cynical fake the ostensible recording of a telephone conversation between two Russian ambassadors doing terms of duty in two African countries, Eritrea and Zimbabwe that was uploaded in YouTube Friday.

The recording of an alleged conversation between Igor Chubarov, the ambassador to Eritrea, and Sergei Bakharev, the ambassador to Zimbabwe, is furnished with ostensible photos of the two men and subtitles in English.

On the recording, two men apparently in their mid-fifties discuss the situation around Crimea and then start talk jokingly about other territories of the world, mentioning Scotland and Alaska among other geographic names.

“It’s scarcely possible to discuss a compilation of sounds, subtitles and photos, one of which shows the outstanding (Soviet) ambassador Yuri Dubinin, who unfortunately passed away in 2013,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“A story that was obviously conjured up in haste gives away a clumsy attempt to divert public attention away from the recent scandals around the utterances of Western diplomats regarding Ukraine,” it said.

Yuri Dubinin, whose photo carries a subtitle claiming the person shown on it is Sergei Bakharev, was born in 1930 and died in 2013

He was the Soviet ambassador to the UN in 1986, ambassador to the U.S. from 1986 through to 1990, and ambassador to France from 1990 through 1991.

From 1994 through to 1996, he was Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

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