© AlamyA leaked recording purporting to be of envoys joking about adding Scotland, Alaska and Venice to Russia's conquest of Crimea is the latest salvo in the war of dirty tricks over Ukraine The conversation features two voices said to be Igor Chubarov, the ambassador to Eritrea, and Sergei Bakharev, the ambassador to Zimbabwe and Malawi
The expletive ridden conversation posted on Youtube features two voices said to be Igor Chubarov, the ambassador to Eritrea, and Sergei Bakharev, the ambassador to Zimbabwe and Malawi.
The voice labelled as Mr Chubarov's congratulates Mr Bakharev on persuading Zimbabwe to back Russia's position on Crimea at the UN, and goes on to joke about telling a European diplomat about future conquests.
"We've got Crimea, but that's not ----ing all, folks. In the future we'll take you ----ing Catalonia, Venice, as well as Scotland and Alaska," the voice says.
The pair go on to add Miami and London to their hit list, noting that "Miamiland' is ----ing 95 percent Russian citizens."
The YouTube posting follows the leaks of at least two embarrassing conversations involving European and American officials that US officials have blamed on the Russian intelligence services.
Comment: Assuming for a moment that they are genuine, the remarks of the two Russian ambassadors may have been in poor taste, there is a grain of truth in the fact that Scotland or any other country would probably get a better deal from Russian affiliation than from the European Union and the IMF.
But it's very unlikely that they are authentic. Unlike the damning Nuland and Ashton tapes implicating the US and EU in a fascist coup d'etat in Ukraine, the Russians haven't acknowledged that these are real.