Italy’s former prime minister Giuseppe Conte is under pressure to clarify an arrangement under which Russia supplied aid to Italy early in the coronavirus pandemic, as questions resurface over the Kremlin’s motives.
Conte, who was forced to resign last year after the collapse of his second administration, could face questioning by Copasir, a parliamentary committee for the security of Italy, amid concerns that Russia may have exploited the aid mission for espionage.
Italy was the first western country to have a major Covid-19 outbreak, and Russia came to its rescue at the height of the emergency, dispatching military doctors, PPE, ventilators and mobile disinfection machines on cargo planes from Moscow. A convoy of lorries emblazoned with the slogan “From Russia with love” was broadcast on Russian state TV making its way to Bergamo, the province most severely affected in the pandemic’s first wave.
The mission was set in motion after a phone call between Conte and Vladimir Putin on 21 March 2020 as Italy struggled to get help from EU partners.
At the time, Tod Wolters, a Nato general, and several Italian generals expressed concern, chiefly over the presence of Russian military personnel in Italy and a belief that Russia was exploiting the crisis for propaganda with the goal of weakening Europe.
The debate has re-emerged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and after a Russian diplomat, Alexei Paramonov, a former consul in Milan, threatened Italy and other EU states with “irreversible consequences” over sanctions. Paramonov accused the Italian defence minister, Lorenzo Guerini, of being one of the main “hawks of the anti-Russia campaign” despite allegedly having sought Russia’s help in the early days of the pandemic.
Riccardo Magi, a deputy with Più Europa, a small leftwing party, said Conte needed to clarify the agreement to Copasir. Magi questioned the Russian aid mission in parliament on 1 April 2020 and received only a partial response seven months later.
“Many were annoyed because it was as if I was embarrassing the government by questioning a country that was seen as a friend,” Magi said. “On some points they responded, on other, more significant points they were elusive. This was a deal that was informally brought together with little caution. Maybe nothing [untoward] happened, but we need to know.”
Giorgio Gori, the mayor of Bergamo, has also questioned the motives of the Russian operation.
Conte said the agreement was “very clear and transparent” and came about in a “moment of extreme difficulty”.
La Repubblica reported that a formal request for Conte to be heard would be made at a Copasir meeting on Thursday, particularly to shed light on whether measures were in place to ensure the aid mission did not transform into “a spy mission”.
