Rome, 1 June 2022 – It was a shocking Sunday evening for Massimo Giletti. First the long interview to the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Minister Shergei Lavrov, Maria Zakharovathen the mountain live. And in the middle the director of free Alessandro Sallusti which interrupts the connection, in obvious disagreement with the contents of the back and forth Giletti-Zakharova and the conduct of the evening. The conductor of the transmission of La7 ‘It’s not the Arena’ perhaps he paid too much stress for a particular episode, conducted live from Moscow, and suffered from an illness that quickly made the tour of Italy. This is the reconstruction of the facts of an episode of ‘Non è l’Arena’ that has made and is causing a lot of discussion.
The interview
In Giletti’s interview with Maria Zakharova, Lavrov’s spokesperson heavily attacked the conductor. “You have never been to Donbass, you are not understanding what is going on there, you do not know what bombings you have been subjected to by the Kiev regime, you do not understand what dead people mean.” Giletti asked under what conditions Moscow would be willing to cease hostilities. “Children talk like this,” Zakharova retorted. In another passage of the interview (lasting about fifty) carried out via Skype from what looked like an apartment, Lavrov’s spokesperson sarcastically proposed to Giletti: “Let’s go together to Syria, to Aleppo”, replying to the conductor’s questions. on the actions of the Russian army in Syria in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Sallusti’s choice
At the end of the interview, the director of Libero, Alessandro Sallusti harshly criticized the tenor and contents of the interview. “I thought you went to Moscow to speak to the Russian people, or with Putin or with a minister – said Sallusti to Giletti -. I am faced with total enslavement in the face of the worst propaganda that there can be. I give up the agreed remuneration,” I abandon the broadcast, I do not participate in this show “. Before disconnecting the connection, Sallusti called the Kremlin “a shitty palace, where the worst crimes against humanity of the last century were decided”.
Giletti’s illness
After the controversy and the greeting from Sallusti, Massimo Giletti accused a slight illness live. A sudden faint, Giletti disappears from the video and immediately comes the cut in advertising. In the studio there is colleague Myrta Merlino who continues the conduct of the episode: “Let’s try to understand what happened to Massimo,” Merlino said. After more than ten minutes, Giletti returns to the video and closes the episode. “I had a faint, maybe a low sugar.”