Italy backs President Sergio Mattarella after scathing attack from Moscow
Feb 16, 2025
Rome [Italy], February 16: Italian President Sergio Mattarella has received cross-party support following a scathing attack from a Russian government spokeswoman regarding his remarks on the invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the attack from Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as "an insult directed at the entire Italian nation" and other parties also backed the 83-year-old veteran politician. Zakharova had accused Mattarella, a highly regarded former defence minister, of "scurrilous inventions" after he drew comparisons between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Nazi Germany's wars of aggression.
In an address at a university at the beginning of February, Mattarella said there were parallels with the "project of the Third Reich" describing both invasions as a "war of conquest." Zakharova responded, "It is strange and bizarre to hear scurrilous slander of this kind from the president of Italy, a country that truly knows what fascism is, not only from hearsay." (DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune
