Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has played down an exchange of messages he had with someone impersonating a senior White House official, in an incident believed to have been orchestrated by a Russian cyber warfare unit. The hoax appears to be part of a wider pattern of impersonation attempts targeting UK and international political figures, raising fresh concerns about state-linked disinformation and social engineering efforts aimed at prominent politicians.

Details of exactly what was said in the exchange, and how Burnham came to realise he was being deceived, remain limited, with Burnham himself seeking to minimise the significance of the episode. Suspicion has fallen on a Russian cyber warfare unit as the likely source of the hoax, though the article provides few further specifics on the investigation or any official response from UK or US authorities.