One might say, paraphrasing a notorious editorial success – clearly it depends on one’s point of view – that it is a “world in reverse”. We have on one side Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, president of the NATO Military Committee, and on the other Roberto Vannacci, former division general of the Army and now federal deputy secretary of the “League for Salvini Premier”. The first announced that NATO is evaluating a “more aggressive” posture against Russian hybrid warfare (see cyberattacks, sabotage and airborne violations), understood as the implementation of “defensive actions”. The second, however, has repeatedly expressed favorable or lenient judgments towards Vladimir Putin, especially in the comparison with Volodymyr Zelensky and in reading Russia’s role in the war. He praised the twenty years of Putin’s government, which would have relaunched Russia domestically and internationally. He doubts that the Kremlin is responsible for the death of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny and criticizes the narrative that sees Russia as an aggressor country, accusing Europe of an “anti-Russian” attitude. Just as he denied that Russia is a threat to Europe and condemned the European rearmament plan, denouncing the risk of escalation. He argues that Zelensky is subordinate to Western aid and that Ukraine has already lost the conflict, hoping for a “realistic peace” with territorial concessions favorable to Moscow. We practically have a champion of Putin’s rhetoric as deputy secretary of the second party that supports the current Italian government.

Cavo Dragone reveals Russian hybrid warfare

While Vannacci’s declarations ensured him promotion on the field in the national political sphere – net of his poor electoral results in the last regional elections in Veneto and Tuscany – within Salvini’s League, those of Admiral Cavo Dragone embarrassed Giorgia Meloni’s government – including Forza Italia leader Antonio Tajani, who should be the moderate soul of the centre-right – and unleashed the ire of the pro-Putinists who, for a decade now, have animated the political debate and culture in our country. And they do it from the studios of all the national talk shows and from the pages of the major newspapers. Yet, Cavo Dragone, with his statements to the Financial Times, did nothing other than say that “the king is naked”, that is, that we are at war. A hybrid war means that the enemy conducts the conflict both with traditional armed operations (for example on Ukrainian territory) and with unconventional tactics, mixing military interventions with civilian tools such as cyber attacks, the spread of false news, propaganda campaigns, acts of sabotage, economic pressure, psychological operations and irregular forces (such as support groups or contractors, or espionage actions on enemy territory). And Cavo Dragone’s words are based on incontrovertible evidence: in the last five years Moscow has multiplied hybrid attacks against Europe. From 3 cases in 2022, to 12 events in 2023, up to 34 in 2024. Sabotage on submarine cables (Balticconnector Finland-Estonia 2023-2024, Nord Stream 2022), on German and Estonian railways, vital for transporting aid to Kyiv, and damage to critical infrastructure in Poland, Germany, France and England. Cyberattacks on KA-SAT satellites (2022), GPS jamming on civil flights in the Baltics, Poland and Germany (2024-2025). Suspicious drones on NATO bases in Germany, Poland, Romania, Belgium, Denmark (2025). Air violations with MiGs in Estonia, Poland, Romania. Propaganda via deepfake and ransomware in order to amplify destabilization especially in Europe.

Italy, Putin’s soft underbelly

It is paradoxical that Cavo Dragone’s words have created confusion and embarrassment for the government, while the declarations of the plethora of Italian pro-Putin supporters who hold crucial roles, in various capacities, in state institutions, in political parties, in TV and press editorial offices and in cultural agencies, do not evoke any reaction. The reason for this paradox is that Russia – as already happened during the long period of the Iron Curtain – has chosen Italy as the privileged terrain of its propaganda offensive in Europe, because Italian public opinion is particularly exposed and receptive to its messages, especially on TV and talk shows, where journalists and commentators relaunch narratives that shift blame and responsibility from Russia towards NATO, the European Union and the United States. This climate finds fertile ground in a traditional sympathy for Putin. Already in June 2021, the Pew Research Center – an American non-profit think tank based in Washington that conducts research based on empirical data – published data on the 17 most advanced economies and their relationship with Putin’s Russia: Italy was, together with Greece, Singapore and Taiwan, among the few advanced countries in which around a third or more of those interviewed declared themselves confident in Russian President Vladimir Putin, with a concentration of consensus especially among the voters of Lega and Forza Italia (today we are becoming aware of the fact that the pro-Putinists are massively widespread even among the parties of the so-called Campo Largo). The most recent European polls show that Italians follow the war in Ukraine more than average, they talk about it a lot among friends and relatives, but they are among the most critical in Europe towards the work of NATO, the United Nations and the European Union itself. Just as they are less convinced that Moscow is responsible for the conflict and more reluctant to support sending weapons to Kyiv, thus positioning themselves alongside countries such as Greece, Bulgaria or Cyprus. This combination of strong attention to the conflict, distrust towards Western institutions and less propensity to assign blame to Putin, makes our country the “soft underbelly” of Europe and, therefore, an ideal context for the penetration of the Russian narrative on the Ukrainian conflict.

From grillino to megaphone in Moscow: Di Battista consecrates Putin’s slogan

Finally, a case study of Putin’s propaganda in Italy is offered to us by Alessandro Di Battista – former parliamentarian and major of the 5 Star Movement of the Grillina and Casaleggi era, former opponent of the then President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, supporter of the French yellow vests together with his then friend Luigi Di Maio and memorable reporter from South America – with his latest literary effort Russia is not my enemyfor the people of Paper First (publishing house of Il Fatto Quotidiano, which among other things – in the era of the Pd-M5S-driven Campo largo – also edited Goffredo Bettini’s latest book, Crossings. Stories and meetings of an Italian communist and democrat). The disturbing element is that the author, Di Battista, makes no secret of his pro-Putin and anti-European narrative. So much so that the title of his book is taken directly from the slogan «Russia is not my enemy» – with variants such as «Russia is not our enemy» – used in Italy in a campaign of posting posters around various Italian cities, judged to be pro-Russian and indicated by foreign media as a propaganda operation attributable to circles close to the Kremlin. The posters showed the image of the united Italian and Russian flags and carried slogans against sending weapons to Kyiv. The diffusion of these posters dates back to at least the summer of 2024, with documented postings in Verona, Modena, Pisa, Parma and Rome. In Italy, in short, the agitprops of Russian propaganda are no longer hidden. Indeed, they have never hidden, strong in the fact that they can propagate pro-Putin disinformation by virtue of the guarantee of the sacrosanct rights that our democracy recognizes for all individuals. It is the strength and, at the same time, the weakness of Western liberal democracy: giving everyone the right to speak, guaranteeing maximum freedom of expression. Contrary to what happens, for example, in Russia, a country in which more than one opponent has died. From Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaja to Alexei Naval’nyj.