The situation became known on Monday when the Senate’s security office informed a group of top lawmakers and their aides about the incident, which happened earlier in September, the report said.
The notice revealed that the individual, who impersonated then-Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba, contacted a senator via Zoom. The document did not mention the lawmaker’s name, but the sources revealed that it was Cardin, according to the report.
The individual spoke in a voice similar to Kuleba's and was asking questions about the current conflict in Ukraine, the report said, citing the notice. It added that he inquired, in particular, about the lawmaker's support for using long-range missiles inside Russian territory.
The person was also asking “politically charged questions in relation to the upcoming election … likely trying to bait the senator into commenting on a political candidate,” the notice said, as quoted by the report.
The people familiar with the investigation suggested that the Russian government could be behind the effort. They did not rule out that the goal was to use the conversation for “propaganda” purposes, the report added.
Russia has repeatedly refuted accusations of meddling into US internal policies.