"Contacts Moscow-League to bring down the government": the controversy breaks out. Salvini: "Fake news"
La Stampa: "A Russian diplomat asked the Northern League if he had the intention of withdrawing the ministers." Read: "Disturbing". Di Maio: "Matter to be clarified"
Salvini disputed in Poland for his pro-Putin positions (Ansa)
The revelations of La Stampa become a coincidence, according to which Russia would have taken an interest in the League in the events of the Italian government, fearing its possible destabilization .
According to the Turin daily, there were contacts between the adviser for international relations of the Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, Antonio Capuano, and Oleg Kostyukov, "an important official of the Russian embassy" in Italy.
La Stampa also reports excerpts of intelligence documents, with talks between the Carroccio adviser and the Moscow official, two months before the fall of the government, during the period in which the Lega and the Five Star Movement were siding against a
new arms shipment to Ukraine.
In particular, writes La Stampa, "the diplomat, showing the possible Russian interest in destabilizing the balance of the Italian government with this operation, would have asked if the ministers of the League were willing to resign from the government".
For his part, Salvini flatly denied : “Was the government crisis dictated by Russia? Let's be serious, soon there will be a denial at an institutional level ", it is" very serious that fake news is spreading. We are with the West and with democracy ", added the secretary of the League.
But, as mentioned, the revelations have raised controversy.
"I believe that Salvini must explain his relations with Russia, in the same days in which the ticket to Moscow was paid in rubles, which he then returned," said Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio .
For the secretary of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta : “Today's press reports on the ties between Salvini and Putin's Russia are disturbing , the electoral campaign begins in the worst way, with a huge stain on this matter. We want to know if it is
it was Putin who brought down the Draghi government. "
Letta himself announced that Copasir will be interested in the issue and will prepare parliamentary questions: "If that were the case - said the secretary dem - it would be something of an endless gravity".
(Unioneonline / lf)
