Italy Remains on Russia’s Radar
In March, Russian political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes credited as a source of inspiration behind the Kremlin, spoke to the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. He predicted an interesting development in Italian politics: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, having betrayed her nationalist, populist roots by aligning with the EU, would shift gears and join what he called an emerging axis led by US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Meloni’s cordial visit last week to the White House, where she represented both her country and an EU inflamed by Washington’s adversarial turn, underscored that she may be the Trump administration’s preferred interlocutor in Europe. However, Meloni still stands alone among her far-right European counterparts as a pro-Ukraine head of government, navigating lukewarm support for this foreign policy at home and heightened uncertainty within the transatlantic alliance. Furthermore, she has been willing to rebuke the Kremlin. Despite Dugin’s prognostications of ascendent Russo-Italian ties, it is no coincidence that Meloni’s country, the EU’s third-largest economy and host to one of its largest defense-industrial bases, remains on the receiving end of Russia’s foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) activity.
Russian meddling in Italy is not new, but it has again become conspicuous and multifaceted. The country remains a key target for Moscow, which for decades has invested in ties with Italian politicians on the left and right, some of whom serve in the current coalition or in Meloni’s party, and cultivated networks in Italian civil society that serve as multipliers of its narratives and soft power. Indeed, cooperation with Russia on energy, business, and other matters has been a frequent goal across Italian governments. Italian politics are also shaped by a desire for geopolitical balancing and a pacifist strain in foreign affairs, a fractured party system that frequently produces short-lived governments, and sensitivity about centralized authority recently aggravated by COVID-19. As a result, Italy’s population harbors conflicting views about its country’s foreign policy and political establishment, which Russia often seeks to capitalize on.
Now as Meloni continues to toe a pro-Ukraine line and find her footing abroad, Russia has enlisted its FIMI toolkit and longstanding leverage in the country to pile additional pressure on her and other Italian politicians, target Italian institutions, and spread pro-Russian narratives about Ukraine.
The Cyberattacks and Posts of Wrath
The Kremlin’s actions signal that there will be consequences for supporting Ukraine. Italy’s elder-statesmanlike president, Sergio Mattarella, has been their principal target. In February, Mattarella likened Russia’s war in Ukraine to the Nazi conquest of Europe. A month later, he criticized Russia during a speech in Hiroshima, Japan for promoting “a dangerous nuclear narrative” through withdrawal from international arms agreements.
Though it is unsurprising that these remarks drew the Kremlin’s ire, especially given its sensitivities about World War II, Russia’s responses were harsh. Notably, pro-Kremlin hackers launched a series of cyberattacks against Italian entities, including the central government and military, financial institutions, public transportation companies, and arms manufacturers. Such a forceful response, Moscow likely hopes, may engender the sense among Italians that sticking their neck out for Ukraine will prove costly.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) accounts on X blasted Mattarella and Italy for supporting Ukraine’s government, again casting Kyiv as run by Nazis, a common theme in Russia’s messaging to the Italian—and global—public. MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was particularly critical, noting that Mattarella made his comments during the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat, which TASS and the Russian Consulates General in Genoa and Milan amplified. And in response to Mattarella’s comments about nuclear weapons, she sarcastically wondered aloud if Mattarella had confused Russia with France, referencing Paris’ considerations to extend the French nuclear umbrella to Europe.
Zakharova also targeted Italian civil society, referring to Italians who defended Mattarella as “local Russophobes” and singling out Milan-based newspaper Corriere della Sera for an article that criticized her as a “megaphone for the Kremlin’s lies”. Russian diplomatic accounts around the world—from Türkiye to Namibia and New Zealand to Slovakia—highlighted Zakharova’s comments, reflecting a parallel effort to portray Russia as a victim of Western aggression and Russophobia.
Rome responded directly, with Meloni first condemning Zakharova for insulting “the entire Italian nation” and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani later summoning Russia’s ambassador. Given that Meloni and Mattarella are not natural political allies, these responses affirm alignment between the heads of state and government on Ukraine—which Russia probably had hoped to dent.
Bringing Ukraine to Udine
The Kremlin has also relied on a network of sympathizers within Italian civil society to amplify and provide local legitimacy to pro-Russian narratives. Russian official messaging noted examples of Italians who took Moscow’s side to show signs of sympathy among the public. Diplomatic accounts thanked Italians who “condemn[ed] Mattarella’s lack of historical and diplomatic sensitivity”. Notably, Zakharova accepted a petition from Vincenzo Lorusso of the pro-Kremlin group Donbass Italia, which purportedly contained 10,000 signatures denouncing Mattarella. Russia’s Embassy in Italy and other diplomatic accounts in the country, as well as state media, amplified the incident.
Russia’s efforts to convince Italians of its narratives are not constrained to social media, however. As ASD and others analyzed last year, pro-Kremlin civic associations in Italy have promoted documentaries that support the Kremlin’s narrative of events in Ukraine to shape public opinion. Many of these documentaries were commissioned by RT, the primary Russian state media outlet targeting foreign audiences.
That strategy has continued in 2025. Screenings of the RT-commissioned film “Maidan, la strada verso la guerra” (Maidan, Road to War) in public spaces in Turin had been shut down in January. But the show went on elsewhere. For example, this film and another called “I bambini del Donbass” (The Children of Donbass), which alleges injustices against the Donbas region’s population at the hands of Ukrainian authorities, were presented at a hotel in Udine. RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan shared videos from this event, bragging that “there were not enough seats” to accommodate the large number of Italians that wanted to attend and calling pro-Ukraine activists who protested the documentaries “thugs”, as she also did last year.
Notably, the University of Turin (UNITO) cancelled a screening of this film initially scheduled for late March amid backlash. RT seized on the incident. On X, Simonyan posted a clip of Italian television channel La7 Attualità’s interview with UNITO Professor Ugo Mattei, one of the screening’s organizers, in which he lambasted the cancellation as anti-democratic. In addition, RT released a segment about Lorusso, who was scheduled to introduce the documentary at the cancelled event. Their video spliced together multiple clips of Lorusso speaking in Italian about “tremendous censorship” that only feeds Italians’ curiosity about Russia’s version of events in Ukraine. Its subtitles, written in English, boasted of sold-out showings in 40 cities and hit back at “Italian authorities” for their efforts to derail them: “All attempts to suppress the truth are futile.” These efforts continue a theme in Russia’s reactions: to weaponize the backlash against their films to suggest that Russia is a victim of—and ally of Italians against—censorship of alternative perspectives, or “the truth”, in their democracy while injecting their narratives about Ukraine into public discourse and higher education.
Giorgia’s Choice
Trump’s arrival is a complicating factor for Meloni. Though the US president has so far celebrated her, his administration has shown seeming indifference to European security and Ukraine’s fate, as well as a willingness to levy tariffs against the EU. If Meloni cannot negotiate deals on terms Washington and Brussels accept on issues like Ukraine or trade, her credibility in both capitals could wane. She must also contend with growing signs at home of skepticism toward the EU’s defense-spending ambitions and Italian military support for Ukraine, as well as divisions within her coalition. And if her pro-Ukraine orientation becomes too difficult to maintain domestically and less fruitful abroad, she could soften her stance.
These variables are provoking mixed messages from Russia, including about Meloni’s positions on Ukraine. They celebrated her rejection of European peacekeepers in Ukraine but slammed her “phony-baloney” suggestion to extend NATO’s Article V protections to the country. Russian television presenter Vladimir Solovyov mocked her attempts not to alienate Trump as “miracles of political somersaults” and amplified a Telegram post that called her and French President Emmanuel Macron “horsemen of the apocalypse”.
As Meloni attempts a balancing act, Moscow seeks to realize Dugin’s forecast by moving more Italians into its column in its battle with Europe. By launching cyberattacks against Italian institutions, Russia likely seeks to convince Italians that backing Ukraine will carry consequences. And by continuing its documentary-messaging strategy, it hopes to change Italians’ perceptions of the merits of supporting Kyiv in the first place.
Russia will continue to leverage its FIMI toolkit to shape Italians’ views and push Meloni—or any leader who chooses not to align with them, for that matter—to change their calculus. With such a fluid geopolitical situation and US-EU tensions on the rise, the Kremlin is unlikely to stop FIMI activity against Italy anytime soon.