Zakharova links collapse to Italian support for Ukraine.
Italy’s foreign ministry on Monday summoned the Russian ambassador after Kremlin foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova mocked Italy over the partial collapse of a mediaeval tower in Rome.
Zakharova linked the collapse of the Torre dei Conti to Italian military support for Ukraine, in comments published via Telegram while a worker lay trapped under the rubble in Rome’s Torre dei Conti.
The worker, a 66-year-old Romanian man called Octay Stroici, was subsequently rescued after being trapped for 11 hours but died in hospital in the early hours of Tuesday.
“As long as the Italian government squanders taxpayers’ money [on Ukraine], Italy will collapse, from the economy to the towers”, Zakharova wrote, noting that “in May of this year, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Italian support to Ukraine, including military aid and contributions paid through EU mechanisms, amounts to approximately €2.5 billion”.
Zakharova’s post, which came just as defence minister Guido Crosetto announced a new aid package to Kiev, provoked an outraged reaction from the Italian foreign ministry, which summoned Russia’s ambassador to Italy Alexey Paramonov for a formal reprimand.
Paramonov will not present himself at the Farnesina at 12.30 on Tuesday however, LaPresse reports, but will be represented by the embassy’s chargé d’affaires Mikhail Rossiyskiy instead.
Reaction
The foreign ministry, cited by Italian news agency ANSA, slammed Zakharova’s “squalid, worrying words” which “confirm the depths of vulgarity into which the Moscow leadership has fallen. No one in Italy, absolutely no one, would ever have thought of rejoicing, of speculating on an accident, a tragedy in which we as Italians are still involved.”
Italy’s deputy premier and foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said that “one cannot speculate on people still under the rubble and on injured workers. We have never done so; whenever there has been a disaster that has struck the Russian Federation, we have always shown solidarity. These statements are shameful, unacceptable in a civilised country.”
Crossetto, in an interview with La Repubblica on Tuesday, said: “I never read what this lady says”, describing Zakharova as “a microscopic part, neither relevant nor sophisticated like others, of Russia’s disinformation capabilities.”
“If the roles had been reversed, that is, if a piece of Russian history, important to Russians, had collapsed, with a person’s life in danger, I would have been sincerely worried and saddened” – Crosetto said – “It would never have occurred to me to polemize”.
Tensions
Zakharova on Tuesday showed no sign of backtracking on Tuesday, telling the Russian news agency Tass that the summons to the foreign affairs ministry will allow Moscow to “remind the Italian leadership” that “sponsoring the terrorist regime in Kiev is a crime and a sin.”
In February, Zakharova responded furiously to a speech by Italian president Sergio Mattarella who drew parallels between Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and “the Third Reich’s project in Europe”.
Zakharova accused Mattarella of “blasphemous fabrications”, adding that Italy is a “country that knows first-hand what fascism truly is”.
Tensions further escalated when Moscow included Tajani and Crosetto in the so-called Italian “blacklist,” calling them “examples of Russophobia” in a document published on the official website of Russia’s foreign affairs ministry.
In July, Zakharova intervened after a concert by pro-Putin conductor Valery Gergiev at the Royal Palace of Caserta was cancelled, condemning an “unprecedented smear campaign” and saying it brought to mind the biblical phrase about not casting “your pearls before swine”.
Image: Maria Zakharova. Photo credit: Maksim Konstantinov / Shutterstock.com.
