Italian MFA Summons Russian Ambassador to Express Protest

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani summoned the Russian ambassador to formally protest the inclusion of President Sergio Mattarella and other representatives of state institutions in the so-called list of ‘Russophobes.’

The Gaze reports on it, referring to the country's Foreign Ministry website.

Tajani considers the inclusion of the head of state on the list of ‘Russophobes’ to be a direct provocation against Italy and the Italian people.

The head of the Italian Foreign Ministry also expressed his full institutional and personal solidarity with President Mattarella.

Recently, the management of the Royal Palace of Caserta in Italy canceled a concert featuring Russian conductor and ‘Putin's friend’ Valery Gergiev after significant resonance and protests from the Ukrainian community.

In the context of this scandal, Culture Minister Alessandro Giuliani stated that art should be free from censorship, but emphasised that in the case of Gergiev, it was not about art, but about propaganda.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the arrival of the ‘world-famous maestro’ at the Italian festival ‘was artificially inflated into a real scandal.’