When war broke out in Ukraine, many eyes in Brussels turned to Italy. The transalpine country had traditionally been a bridge between Moscow and the West. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) was the most powerful outside the USSR. The dependence on Russian gas was very high: more than 40% of what was imported. Italian companies had large business interests. In a pandemic, Vladimir Putin sent an army convoy to Bergamo with a huge Russian flag.
But those who feared that Italy was the EU's weak point against Putin were wrong. As prime minister, Mario Draghi was one of the strongest voices in the community club against Russia. He sent weapons to Ukraine, helped strengthen NATO's eastern flank, and supported all European sanctions against Moscow. Italy, thanks to an experience of police fight against the mafia, was one of the fastest countries when it came to confiscating assets from the oligarchs who were friends of Putin. Draghi did not visit Kyiv immediately, but when he did he shared a train with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
After the fall this week of Mario Draghi's government, one of the fears in Brussels is that Italy will change its position towards Russia and a founding country of the EU will become vulnerable to Moscow. Former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev has already celebrated the prime minister's resignation ahead of time. Coincidentally, the parties that have caused the political uncertainty that have forced an advance election to September 25 are Matteo Salvini's League, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, and Giuseppe Conte's 5 Star Movement (M5E), three formations that in the past have been close to the positions of the Kremlin.
“Surely Russia has used a number of Italian situations. According to intelligence, there have been Russian operations to infiltrate Italian television with pro-Kremlin narratives. It does not mean that they are paid by Russia, but many useful idiots have inadvertently done what Moscow wanted”, comments La Stampa journalist Jacopo Iacoboni.
Berlusconi, who is part of the European People's Party, boasted for years about his old friendship with Vladimir Putin, with whom he shared trips and gifts. Salvini, posing in T-shirts with the face of the Russian president, has discussed sending arms to Ukraine, citing an alleged pacifism supported by Italians in the polls. During the crisis he had repeatedly met with the Russian ambassador to Italy without Draghi's permission. He even tried to organize a trip to Moscow to present his own peace plan for the war, a trip frustrated by the many criticisms he received. It was later learned that the Russian embassy in Rome had bought the tickets for him, and then the League refunded the amount.
The case of Conte is also notorious: the first great tension with the Draghi executive was the refusal to send more weapons to the Ukrainians. The former leader of the M5E, Luigi Di Maio, left the party on the grounds that he was weakening Italy abroad with these positions.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, is leading the polls and could lead a right-wing government alongside Salvini and Berlusconi. She is less ambivalent than her allies: in the opposition she supported Draghi's position, and she wanted to send a message of calm: “The West must know that it can count on us. I will not tolerate any ambiguity on this point”, she said yesterday on RAI.
