Rome,
\nItalian government officials are warning of possible foreign interference in the March 4 general election, sounding the alarm following the US indictment of<\/p>\n
Russian trolls and evidence of Russian-sourced fake news on popular Italian platforms.<\/p>\n
Premier Paolo Gentiloni on Tuesday released Italy\u2019s annual security report, which aside from highlighting the threat of Islamic extremism, warned about online<\/p>\n
\u201cinfluence campaigns\u201d that aim to \u201ccondition both the sentiment and political orientation of public opinion, especially at election time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report didn\u2019t mention Russia by name. But for months, US and Italian analysts have warned that European elections are prime targets for Russian meddling,<\/p>\n
with the Italian contest particularly ripe because two key opposition parties the nationalist League and the anti-establishment, populist 5-Star Movement have<\/p>\n
cultivated ties with Moscow.<\/p>\n
League leader Matteo Salvini has made several high-profile trips to Russia, including a March 2017 visit to sign a cooperation agreement with ruling party United<\/p>\n
Russia. The 5-Stars, meanwhile, have fostered similar relationships and called for the lifting of European Union sanctions against Russia.<\/p>\n
Deputy US Secretary of State John J Sullivan said he inquired about the risk of Russian meddling during talks in Rome Monday with officials from Italy\u2019s foreign<\/p>\n
and interior ministries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey believe there will be a free election that will reflect the will of the Italian people on March 4,\u201d Sullivan told a forum at the Rome-based Center for American<\/p>\n
Studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they are very cautious and keeping a close eye on any potential for an outside party, such as those we saw in the election in the United States in 2016,<\/p>\n
interfering.\u201d \u201cSo they\u2019re vigilant but optimistic,\u201d he added in response to a question from The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Pre-election opinion polls currently give the lead to a center-right coalition comprising the Forza Italia party of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Salvini\u2019s anti-<\/p>\n
immigrant League and a smaller right-wing nationalist party, Brothers of Italy. Berlusconi has a long friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin from his<\/p>\n
own years in power.<\/p>\n
While the center-left Democratic Party that has led Italy since 2013 conformed to the EU sanctions over Moscow\u2019s annexation of Crimea and support for<\/p>\n
separatist fighters in Ukraine, plenty of Italians would like to see the sanctions lifted.<\/p>\n
A recent report by Italian business daily Il Sole 24 estimated that Italy had lost 4 billion euros (USD 4.9 billion) and 80,000 jobs as a result of the sanctions.<\/p>\n
Eleonora Tafuro Ambrosetti, a research fellow at the Institute for International Political Studies in Milan, noted that anti-EU sentiment is helping to make the<\/p>\n
League and 5-Star Movement appealing to voters.<\/p>\n
But Ambrosetti questioned how effective a propaganda campaign to influence the upcoming election would be. She noted that the Twitter feed for Russian<\/p>\n
news agency Sputnik\u2019s Italian division has a mere 6,300 followers. A recent investigation of alleged Russian meddling by Italy\u2019s La Stampa newspaper turned<\/p>\n
up five suspect Twitter accounts.<\/p>\n
The threat, Ambrosetti said, \u201cseems a bit exaggerated.\u201d While the 5-Star and League work to foster political ties with Moscow, Putin and his lieutenants have<\/p>\n
focused on remaining friendly with the current Italian government.<\/p>\n
Asked to comment last week on Italian reports alleging nefarious Russian interest in the March 4 election, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria<\/p>\n
Zakharova said the accusations haven\u2019t been backed by facts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are specific facts, we are ready to discuss them. But give us figures, facts, dates, roles, names, secret meeting places, or any suspicions. Right now<\/p>\n
there are none,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov similarly has criticized what he described as attempts by Western nations to blame Russia for their domestic problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe predominant myth now is the alleged \u2018omnipotent Russian threat,\u2019 the traces of which they are trying to find everywhere from Brexit to the Catalan<\/p>\n
referendum,\u201d Lavrov said at last week\u2019s Munich security conference.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s top diplomat also rejected theories that his country would profit from a weakened and destabilized Europe. Lavrov said Russia wants a strong Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rome, Italian government officials are warning of possible foreign interference in the March 4 general election, sounding the alarm following the US indictment of Russian trolls and evidence of Russian-sourced fake news on popular Italian platforms. Premier Paolo Gentiloni on Tuesday released Italy\u2019s annual security report, which aside from highlighting the threat of Islamic extremism, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22597,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22595\/revisions\/22597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}