After the case of the Rai correspondent in the Russian region of Kursk, Stefania Battistini, Moscow has once again pointed the finger at the Italian media, accusing them of “praising Ukrainian neo-Nazis while posing for reports wearing SS symbols.”
“As you know, the Russian authorities have opened a criminal case against Italian journalists for having crossed the Russian border illegally,” the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry recalled yesterday on Telegram, Maria Zakharova. “But this, in my opinion, is not the most serious crime of RAI employees.” “Western media continue to engage in the targeted rehabilitation of Ukrainian neo-Nazis and the revision of the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal,” Zakharova continued in her post.
The spokeswoman, explicitly naming him, attacks a report by Rai correspondent in Ukraine, Ilario Piagnerelli. “Previously, correspondent Piagnerelli had already reported stories about Bucha and a deceased neo-Nazi from Pravi Sektor, who is banned in Russia,” the spokeswoman writes. “Now he has reached a new level after doing an interview in which he shows a man wearing a hat with the insignia of the SS division ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’,” the spokeswoman says.
“The Italian media are increasingly reminiscent of the Volkischer Beobachter (People’s Observer, the official newspaper of the Nazi Party). We are waiting for the official reaction from Rome,” concludes Zakharova.
Today the spokesperson returned to the subject with another post on Telegram in which she sarcastically jokes about the fact that Piagnerelli would have deleted the interview in question from social media. “The Italian lover of Ukrainian neo-Nazis got nervous. Why?” is the short comment that accompanies the screenshot of a post X from the anonymous profile ‘Chance Giardinier’ in which it is written that “the Rai journalist deleted the video of the interview”.
Piagnerelli: “Our work continues free from constraints”
“I grew up with a partisan grandfather, one of the real ones, who today would have no doubts in distinguishing between invaded and invader, between those who resist and those who occupy. I was educated in the values of the Constitution. I deeply regret having given voice, even if only for a few seconds, to a Ukrainian soldier who only after the broadcast of the report I noticed wearing a patch with a Nazi symbol”. The Rai correspondent in Ukraine, Ilario Piagnerelli, rejects on “X” the accusations arrived via Telegram from the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Moscow, Maria Zakharova.
“There is a network of pro-invasion profiles linked to Moscow in Italy,” Piagnerelli continues, “that dedicates its resources to discrediting my work and that of other correspondents. They pretend to be shocked, but they have found in that image a formidable argument for anti-Ukrainian propaganda. The one just concluded was my fifteenth trip to Ukraine. In two and a half years I have produced dozens of reports and hundreds of live broadcasts. Among the European public services, Rai is probably the one that is reporting the conflict with the greatest assiduity. Our reports are often distributed on Eurovision. This is also why we are subjected to attacks, such as the very recent ones that followed Stefania Battistini’s world scoop. Our work,” he assures, “will continue to be free from conditioning and characterized by the utmost rigor.