Ukrainian authorities have accussed Russia's secret services of posing as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to hold fake interviews with The New York Times. Ukrainian presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko spoke about incident via his Facebook page.

Tsegolko says Russian agents pretending to be Poroshenko sent The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet a letter asking for a telephone interview. A fake telephone number and email address also accompanied the letter, said the spokesman. Apparently, the Russian agents then held several telephone conversations with journalists and gave answers to their questions supposedly dictated from Poroshenko.

A copy of the fake letter from Svyatoslav Tsegolko's Facebook account. Photo: Ukrainian presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko

Publication of the article containing the fake interviews was only averted, says Tsegolko, because New York Times correspondents contacted the Ukrainian presidential press service to reconfirm what had been said and run some fact checks.