Salvini stops, no trip to Moscow: “But I don’t give up, I continue to talk to the Russians for a ceasefire”

In the end, Matteo Salvini was convinced. Or maybe not. He will not go to Moscow, but will continue to “dialogue with the Russians”. His diplomatic trip, announced in recent weeks in an attempt to meet Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov (but who knows, also President Putin directly) and stop a war that “hurts Italy more than Russia” will not happen. Since we were in May, the Captain had made it known that his project had been buried by criticism and controversy: from the leaders of the parties of the ruling majority, Letta in testa (“We need seriousness, not folklore”) , by Carlo Calenda (“War is a serious thing. Go and kiss the caciocavallo, say hello to the cows on the beach and let the adults work”) and Matteo Renzi (“We need the good ones”). Of many of his own party comrades. But above all he had opened yet another crack within the government, with Foreign Minister Di Maio astonished that he had not been warned of anything, and of the institutions. The “case” had also ended up under the magnifying glass of Copasir, which while premising that “it never expresses political evaluations on the activity of parliamentarians” had turned the spotlight on the lawyer Antonio Capuano, Salvini’s adviser and organizer of the trip to Moscow of the Northern League leader.

“I had announced that there would be the possibility of a trip to Turkey and Russia to confront myself with institutional subjects,” Salvini told Il Piccolo and Messaggero Veneto, on the occasion of the electoral tour in Friuli Venezia Giulia. «I would have started with two objectives: relaxation and defense of the Italian national interest. Having acknowledged the displaced reactions of government colleagues, I confronted the leaders of the League and we agreed to take other paths. The peace plan proposed to Moscow by Italy was discarded after ten minutes and Russia prefers to talk to Paris and Berlin rather than Rome: this is the current photograph and I am worried. With the spread at its highest since 2018, with gasoline well above 2 euros per liter, skyrocketing electricity and gas bills, inflation at 7% and the risk of many factories closing down, do everything possible to stop the war and return to peace for Italy is a question of life or death “.

The Captain brakes, therefore, overwhelmed by what he himself defined a “political lynching” softened only by the support of the new president of the Senate Foreign Affairs Commission Stefania Craxi: “A political leader has all the legitimacy to use diplomatic channels and advance political actions” . “The sanctions against Moscow are doing more harm to Italy than to Russia: it seems paradoxical, but it is so,” Salvini continued in his outburst. “I find it incredible that, in this scenario, the problem for the left is the League working for peace.” Then the lunge: “The ceasefire must be asked of the Russians and therefore I am continuing to converse with the Russians, because peace is in the interest of all, of the Italians first of all”.

For now there remains the memory of Salvini’s first diplomatic trip since the beginning of the war: in March the Captain had gone to Poland, advancing to the border with Ukraine. It had not gone very well: upon his arrival Wojciech Bakun, mayor of the border town Przemys, had accused him of his closeness to Putin by exhibiting a t-shirt worn in the past by Salvini with the face of the Russian president.
Meanwhile, the “Salvini case” will be discussed in the coming days at the request of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, where a discussion will be held on the relations of the Russian government and Kremlin diplomacy with the parties of the European right. League included.