Elton John Talks to Russian Prankster who introduced himself as Putin

Guardian reports that the purported call between Vladimir Putin and Elton John didn’t infact take place.

“Alexei has great English, so he introduced himself as Dmitry Peskov (Mr Putin’s spokesman) and translated our conversation”. He said: ‘Thank you.

Sir Elton posted a message on Instagram on Monday thanking the Russian president for “reaching out” to him during the call and said he looked forward to a face-to-face meeting “to discuss LGBT equality”.

“Yes, it was us”, Krasnov was quoted as saying by Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

The Kremlin denies that Putin made any sort of phone call to Elton John and presented the musician’s claim as incorrect. “You are President of Russian Federation , and you go and say stupid things like that?”

Krasnov and Stolyarov said John had been waiting for a call from Putin “very much” and that’s why he instantly believed that he was really talking to the people who they said they were.

John, who is gay, believed he was getting a Kremlin call because he told the BBC Saturday he’d like to meet with Putin and discuss Russia’s “ridiculous” treatment of gay citizens.

While on a visit to Ukraine last week, Elton John met with President Petro Poroshenko and called for stronger protections and expanded rights for the Eastern European nation’s LGBT population. “I don’t doubt that if there is such a request, the president will be ready to meet with Elton John among others to give answers to all the questions that he might ask”, he said.

In it, he criticized Putin for advocating “isolating and prejudiced” policies against gay people, and said he’d like to speak with the Russian president, though dismissed the likelihood of such a conversation happening as “pie in the sky”. “This day and conversation have been the most remarkable and splendid of my life”.

The singer, who has two young sons with husband David Furnish, has been outspoken on the issue of gay rights before, most recently when, earlier this year, he temporarily boycotted Dolce and Gabbana after the fashion designers called children conceived by IVF “synthetic”.

Russian Federation passed a law banning homosexual “propaganda” among children in June 2013, sparking an global outcry.