A U.S. Treasury-sanctioned Russian agent released selectively framed phone recordings that traveled from a Kyiv press conference into the heart of the American election.
In May 2020, Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Derkach held a press conference releasing leaked audio of 2016 phone calls between then-Vice President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, presenting them as evidence of a cover-up tied to Biden’s son Hunter and the energy company Burisma. Four months later, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach directly, stating he had been “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who ran a covert influence campaign — a coordinated, hidden effort to shape a target country’s political discourse in ways favorable to the sponsor while concealing the sponsor’s involvement — built around edited audio, unsubstantiated claims of corruption, and coordination with allies of then-President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. The recordings themselves, when reviewed independently, did not support the corruption narrative built around them; several outlets found they largely corroborated Biden’s own public account. The operation nonetheless achieved wide circulation among conservative media and reached the halls of the U.S. Senate, illustrating how a foreign intelligence-linked actor can seed a narrative domestically and let partisan media do the work of laundering it into the mainstream.
The Press Conference
On May 19, 2020, Derkach — a member of the Ukrainian parliament with a documented history of ties to Russian intelligence training institutions — released what he described as leaked recordings of phone calls between Biden and Poroshenko from 2015 and 2016. Derkach framed the tapes as proof that Biden had pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, specifically to protect Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden sat on the board, at a time when Shokin was nominally investigating the firm. The Washington Post’s initial reporting on the release noted Derkach’s history of pushing similar claims and his documented contacts with Giuliani, who had traveled to Ukraine seeking material damaging to Biden throughout 2019.
What the Tapes Actually Showed
Independent review undercut the narrative built around the recordings. IBTimes reported that the leaked calls did not mention Hunter Biden or Burisma at all. Multiple outlets that reviewed the audio concluded it corroborated the version of events Biden had given publicly for years: that he pushed for Shokin’s removal because Shokin was seen — including by European allies and anti-corruption advocates inside Ukraine — as broadly ineffective against corruption, not because of any investigation touching Burisma specifically. The gap between what the tapes contained and what Derkach claimed they proved is the operation’s central feature: a technically real recording, selectively framed, doing the work a forged document might otherwise have done.
Treasury’s Findings
On September 10, 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach directly, stating he had been “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who maintained close contact with Russian intelligence services and had “waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials” ahead of the 2020 election, including through the release of “edited audio tapes and other unsupported information with the intent to discredit U.S. officials.” Treasury’s designation placed Derkach’s operation squarely within a broader Russian intelligence effort, an assessment later echoed in the U.S. intelligence community’s public election-interference reporting naming Derkach as a key instrument of Russian influence.
Amplification and Reach
Once released, the audio moved quickly through conservative media and social platforms. PolitiFact’s later review confirmed the May 2020 press conference was the origin point cited across years of subsequent claims, and traced how the material was shared by prominent political figures without disclosure of Derkach’s Treasury designation or his documented Russian intelligence ties. WHYY’s reporting found that even after the sanctions made Derkach’s role explicit, the underlying audio and the corruption narrative attached to it continued circulating largely undiminished — a demonstration of how difficult it is to retract a narrative once it has moved from its origin point into a partisan media ecosystem with no institutional incentive to correct it.
Legal Aftermath and a Second Track
Separately, in October 2020, Derkach claimed on social media to possess a “second” laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, a claim distinct from — but timed to reinforce — the New York Post’s contemporaneous reporting on a laptop obtained through other channels; U.S. officials have not established that the Post’s story originated with a Russian influence operation, and the two threads are frequently conflated in public discussion despite differing provenance. In December 2022, federal prosecutors unsealed charges against Derkach, alleging he violated U.S. sanctions by attempting to launder money and purchase real estate in the United States through intermediaries; Derkach himself remains in Ukraine, beyond the reach of U.S. arrest. The Treasury later sanctioned additional Ukrainian parliamentarians tied to Derkach’s network, describing an ongoing effort to relaunch similar narratives ahead of subsequent U.S. elections.
Outcome
The Derkach operation illustrates a distinct method within the broader Russian influence toolkit: rather than fabricate evidence outright, it exploited a technically genuine but decontextualized recording, laundered through a foreign lawmaker with a public office and an ostensibly independent motive, then left to domestic political actors — who had their own incentives to amplify it — to carry the narrative into the mainstream. That structure made the operation harder to label as foreign disinformation in real time, since responsibility for its spread could always be attributed to domestic political actors rather than the original source.
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