Head of State Sergio Mattarella allegedly “made outrageous and patently false historical parallels between the Russian Federation and Nazi Germany”. Serious words that, through Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, constitute an attack on Italy. The attack refers to the words that the Head of State uttered a few days ago in Marseille, speaking of ‘phenomena of an authoritarian nature that took over in some countries. This was the project of the Third Reich in Europe. Today’s Russian aggression against Ukraine is of this nature’. According to Zakharova, Mattarella ‘should think about the fact that today Italy, along with the other NATO countries, is pumping modern lethal weapons into the neo-Nazi terrorist regime in Kiev, thus unconditionally supporting the criminal regime in all its crimes’.
Giorgia Meloni herself underlined the seriousness of the words: ‘The insults of the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, who called the words of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, “blasphemous inventions”, offend the entire Italian nation, which the Head of State represents. I express my full solidarity, as well as that of the entire Government, with President Mattarella, who has always firmly supported the condemnation of the aggression perpetrated against Ukraine.
Senate President Ignazio La Russa also defends Mattarella: “I find the statements made by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova inappropriate and out of place. To Head of State Sergio Mattarella, guardian of the values of the Republic and reference point of the nation, I renew my esteem and express my personal and the Senate’s closeness”.
The Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies Fabio Rampelli, of Fratelli d’Italia, is of the same opinion: ‘We find it a serious lack of institutional and diplomatic politeness that a spokeswoman of a foreign state should attack the Italian Head of State in such an immoderate manner. Italy is a free and sovereign nation in which the President represents national unity and is the guarantor of the Constitution. All these characteristics are lacking in Russia, which in fact invaded Ukraine just as Nazi Germany did in its time with Poland and then with the Soviet Union itself. It was a war of conquest just like Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, hypocrisy is a useless frill. A sunny truth that of President Mattarella, in merit and method’.
