MOSCOW, June 9. /TASS/. YouTube took down a prominent channel belonging to bloggers Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, also known as Vovan and Lexus, on June 9 and the reason may have been a prank they recently pulled on ex-US President George W. Bush, Kuznetsov told TASS.
"We made an additional channel some time after the removal of the main one, and uploaded our content there," he said. "Nobody messed with it for about a month, but literally a week after the prank with Bush it was taken down."
"I don’t know if that’s specifically related to the prank, but English-speaking users began to visit [it], and would leave comments, watch, share," the blogger continued. "It’s quite possible that Bush's entourage just complained about us. I wouldn’t be surprised."
Kuznetsov said the backup channel was deleted without explanation - the same way as the main one. "One morning it just wasn’t there, everything was gone," he said. "We got no complaints, nothing. Censorship is after us, I think, YouTube is now off limits to us."
The channel contained "not only pranks, but also releases of our entertainment show," he said. "Everything was deleted," he said.
Kuznetsov said the pranksters will think about whether to take Google to court for removing the channel. "We need to consult with lawyers. I doubt that, even with a court decision in our favor, someone will restore our channel," he said. "And we will think about financial compensation."
Vovan and Lexus earlier published a prank with former US President George W. Bush where they called him and palmed themselves off as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Bush made some remarkable statements during the call. For example, he said the US vowed to former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward, confirmed the US biolabs in Ukraine and spoke emotionally about former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.