Explaining how the call was set up, Mr Wallace said: “A government department referred me to a request for a phone call with the Ukrainian prime minister, a man I’ve never met before.

“The department set up a phone call with me. It was like on my mobile phone for a Teams call. It appeared and he looked like him because I’d looked at the photograph. And he had the Ukraine flag behind him.”

Mr Wallace said he terminated the call when the discussion turned to security matters.

“I got suspicious and, after about eight, nine minutes, I terminated the call. I played it pretty straight throughout,” he said.

He said he believed those behind the hoax will selectively edit it and potentially release it to a Russian audience. “They’ll slice it and dice it and cut out the bits where I say the international community wants Ukraine to be free to choose as a sovereign nation,” he said.

“They won’t cover my bit about press freedom. They won’t cover my thoughts about disparaging President Putin or what [the Russians] are doing in Ukraine is appalling.”

Security officials will want to determine whether Mr Wallace’s phone has been compromised.

The Duke of Sussex fell victim to Russian hoaxers when he was duped into speaking about his decision to quit the Royal family by impostors posing as activist Greta Thunberg.

During two phone calls recorded by the pranksters, the Duke also claimed that Donald Trump, the former US president, had “blood on his hands”.

Russian intelligence services are alleged to coordinate a sophisticated cyberwarfare strategy that has involved denial service attacks, hacks and the dissemination of disinformation and propaganda.

Russia used Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms to try to swing the 2016 US. presidential campaign for Donald Trump, according to a subsequent US inquiry.