"One glaring example is Moscow’s claim – dismissed by the UN, and used as a justification for its full-scale invasion in 2022 – that Ukrainian military action in the Donbas conflict amounted to genocide.
Dozens of Italians joined Russian proxies in Donbas in the years after 2014 to fight against Kyiv.
The majority of them are rightwing extremists attracted by Russian ultranationalism, but their ranks also count among them men belonging to the extreme left.
In part this was a legacy of the postwar strength of the Italian Communist party, which peaked at 34.4% share of the vote in 1976 and backed what was seen as the resistance of communist countries against American imperialism.
This vision, in part, still animates supporters of the Italian extreme left who see Russia as a bulwark against the US, and also believe Putin’s claims about “Ukrainian Nazis”.
To mark Victory Day in 2022, a holiday that commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, the Communist party of Zagarolo, Rome, released a series of posters featuring the letter Z used by the Russian government as a pro-war motif.
The organisers of the event dismissed critics, saying it “was not a provocation”.
According to a Pew Research Center survey released in July, Italy is among the countries in the EU where people have the lowest confidence in Zelenskiy.
