We admit that our own prank wasn't very inspired, but thankfully the Russian Foreign Ministry never disappoints.

How could it? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is well-versed in the teachings of YOLO.

A great man who leads a great ministry

The Ministry announced on its official Facebook page this morning:

The Ministry of foreign affairs of Russia, has developed a pilot for a taped answering machine for Russian diplomatic missions abroad.

Sounds harmless enough. Until you remember what day it is.

This "answering machine" is pure, Siberian gold (skip to 0:30 for English):

"You have reached the Russian Embassy. Your call is very important to us. To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponents, press 1. To use the services of Russian hackers, press 2. To request election interference, press 3 and wait until the next election campaign. Please note that all calls are recorded for quality improvement and training purposes."

UPDATE: Thanks to the fine work of one of our amazing commenters, we now learn that the party-poopers at CNN are not amused by this harmless prank (rushed translation from Russian):