LESS THAN 24 hours after the super-production staged to celebrate the start of Kyproulla’s six-month presidency of the EU Council, with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as the guest star, Prez Nik II’s unconcealed joy turned to misery.

The video that was posted on the ‘X’ platform on Thursday afternoon and went viral after an hour, abruptly ended the euphoric mood at the palace as the president and his courtiers were forced to go into crisis-management mode.

Their objective was to find ways of discrediting the video about the government’s dodgy fund-raising methods, none of which seemed to work. Within a couple of hours, Mini Me said the video was “malicious” and the “product of montage/splicing” that “uses false and misleading claims.”

Not so false, considering the three men that appeared in it – former energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, director of the president’s office and brother-in-law Charalambos Charalambous, and Cyfield CEO Giorgos Chrysochos – did not deny having said what was featured in the video. All they could say was that their words were edited in a way that created a mistaken impression.

NOBODY bought this, nor the government’s claim that some crime had been committed and the case had been reported to police and the attorney-general. An attempt to appeal to our patriotism, by making out that this was an attack on our Kyproulla also failed to dampen the anger against government on social media.

Mini Me had misleadingly suggested that the video could have been the product of AI, but this theory was rubbished by an expert from the technological university Tepak. With everything having failed, it was left to the director of the prez’s press office Victoras to resort to the old school method of questioning the right of others to criticise the government.

How dare Akel chief Stefanos Stefanou criticise the government, which did not accept lessons from parties that were caught red-handed putting bribes in their bank accounts. Only if Akel had put the bribes in a charity to help needy students, without saying who had made the bribe, would it have the moral right to criticise the government.

BY FRIDAY evening the government had got its act together and found the perfect defence for the dodgy dealings exposed by the video.

It was the victim of a hybrid operation and full explanation with background information was provided by Saturday’s Phil, which alleged that Mother Russia was behind the video. Deputy spokesman Yiannis Antoniou also put Kyproulla in the role of victim of hybrid operations but avoided mentioning the perpetrator.

He could not mention Mother Russia, which always had a principled stand on the Cyprob, because this would demolish the myth about our multi-lateral foreign policy and our good relations with Moscow.

In fact, Antoniou mentioned that being the target of a hybrid operation had nothing to do with the policy choices of the government. Brussels had warned Nicosia, several months ago, that it could be the target of a hybrid attack when it took over the presidency, he said, implying that this was something that happened to the country enjoying the presidency of the EU.

It was the price Kyproulla had to pay for running the EU.

THE VIDEO was most probably a manifestation of a hybrid operation by the secret services of Mother Russia, but the main target was not Kyproulla. It was Prezniktwo, who had been a loyal Moscow man until his election after which he cut all links with Russia and took Kyproulla Westwards.

His behaviour was bound to have angered big-shots in the Kremlin which had helped his election drive and contributed significant funds to his campaign. Rival presidential candidate, Andreas Mavroyiannis, mentioned the big funds the Prez had received from Russian sources during the election campaign on Thursday night.

It was probably in cash, as Giorgos Lakkotrypis had mentioned on the video, so that it could not be traced by anyone. Lakkotrypis said the Prez took cash for his campaign, so that he could exceed the €1 million spending limit set by the law. When it was cash there was no way of tracing it.

THE KREMLIN had every reason to be pissed about our Nik’s ingratitude and nobody was surprised that it punished this with the video. It had invested a lot in him (some say that Moscow had supported his appointment as foreign minister) and did not expect to be let down so badly.

There is always a price to pay for crossing Moscow. In fact, there are fears that the video is not the end of the hybrid operation. The brother-in-law had after all been filmed telling the ‘investors’ that he could arrange for them to see the Prez. If the meeting was held there could be another video-nasty posted before long.

Our Prez should be happy his disloyalty was punished with just an embarrassing video because Moscow has been known to poison some of its enemies. If I were in the Prez’s position I would employ an official taster, like Roman emperors and Popes used to do, to protect them from poisoning.

I am certain there is still some relative of the first lady that is seeking appointment to a public post.

IT GOES without saying that the Prez used the accusations made by the video as an excuse to advertise his honesty.

“I have said it many times and I will repeat it today. I will give no one – no one at all – the right to accuse me of corruption,” he declared and added: “Anyone in possession of evidence regarding any direct or indirect bribery should immediately submit it to the state authorities.” And they will do absolutely nothing – I said that, not the prez.

This idea that we can call someone corrupt only if they give us the right to do so seems rather stupid to me. Had the Prez given Moscow the right to make an 8-minute video, claiming he was corrupt?

SPEAKING of corruption, I hear that MEP Fidias has been reported to the Anti-Corruption Authority for allegedly claiming expenses from the European Parliament he was not entitled to claim. The Anti-Corruption Authority did not have the power to deal with this, so it forwarded the report to the European Public Prosecutors Office.

I suspect Fidias is not the first MEP to make bogus claims for expenses, but then again MEPs, who claim money they are not entitled to, do not video themselves criticising the European Parliament for wasting the money of the European taxpayers. You have to admire Fidias’ hypocrisy, because it is genuine.

JUST after Christmas, the former Greek foreign minister of Greece Nikos Kodzias published an opinion piece in Phil, about the last supper of Crans Montana in 2017. The main theme of the article was that the UN minutes of that supper, were biased, with special representative Espen Barth Eide “putting his views in the mouth of Antonio Guterres.”

Kodzias, described by Phil as a “loyal friend of Cyprus” is currently writing a book about the Cyprob. Can anyone take seriously an academic who wrote an academic hagiography of Poland’s communist prime minister, General Jaruzelski in the 1980s, on instructions from the Kremlin, even if he is a loyal friend of Cyprus, whatever than means?

THE CORRUPTION video did not leave us any space to cover Wednesday’s extravaganza in Nicosia, during which the Prez came up with a very rich assortment of new catchphrases. We will try to cover them next Sunday. I just hope Mother Russia does not post the sequel to last Thursday’s blockbuster.

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