A pro-Russian billboard campaign appeared in Italian cities in September, with the slogan “Russia is not our enemy” and a handshake in the colors of the Italian and Russian flags. It was followed by similar posters in France, shared by a far-right militant Christian Bouchet, which shows signs of an international coordinated pro-Kremlin campaign. And it goes in line with Putin’s continious war against Ukraine.
Anton Shekhovtsov, Director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity and author of the books “Russia and the Western Far Right,” wrote that there can be a link between this Russian propaganda campaign and Russian operatives and agents of influence.
Some of the posters that appeared this week in Rome also contain the words, “Enough money for weapons for Ukraine and Israel. We want peace. We reject war. The billboards demanded a halt to funding for “weapons for Ukraine and Israel”.
Billboards across Italy displayed hundreds of posters with the slogan “Russia is not our enemy” were slammed by Ukraine, which has been suffering from Russia’s all-out war. The Ukrainian Embassy in Italy expressed concern over an organized Russian propaganda campaign and asked the Rome authorities “to reconsider granting permits for such posters that have a clear purpose of rehabilitating the image of the aggressor state.”.
An Italian media regulation official told CNN that Italian law does not require cities or regions to approve the content of posters, but companies owning advertising spaces must adhere to rules that prohibit support for fascism or other extreme views.
In Rome, the posters caused outrage among the city authorities, who ordered them removed from billboards. Other regions of Italy responded differently to the posters: some removed them, while others allowed them to stay until the payment deadline.
CNN reported that an Italian right-wing group called “Sovranita Popolare” (Popular Sovereignty) was behind the campaign. Later, “Sovranita Popolare” published an article denying its responsibility for the campaign, but it quoted Article 11 of the Italian Constitution, which states that “Italy rejects war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples and as a means for the settlement of international disputes.” It also confirmed that it did spread a news article about this pro-Russian campaign as early as on September 12.
Interestingly, the same poster appeared in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Pro-Ukraine Yellow Ribbon activists from this occupied Ukrainian city posted a photo of a billboard with the same image and the text about Russia-Italy friendship in Russian.
An investigation by Massimiliano Coccia @maxcoccia revealed that Domenico Aglioti, an Italian antivaxx, anti-5G, and pro-Putin activist, coordinated the campaign. Aglioti himself claimed that the campaign was crowd-funded. Shekhovtsov, however, pointed out that the September campaign echoed a similar campaign from the summer of this year, and he traced that campaign to actual Russian operatives.
The summer campaign also involved numerous posters across Italy, starting in northern Italy, a bastion of Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega party, and was coordinated by the Veneto-Russia Cultural Association presided by Palmarino Zoccatelli.
It was also Zoccatelli’s Association that was responsible for opening a “centre of representation” of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) in Verona in 2019. The DNR group, backed by Russia, was running a self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ in parts on the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
In addition to Zoccatelli, the association’s board includes two prominent figures from the Italian pro-Russian circles: Stefano Valdegamberi and Eliseo Bertolasi.
Valdegamberi is a long-time Russian influence figure who was, until 2023, linked to the Lega party. One of Valdegamberi’s Russian handlers was Sargis Mirzakhanian, and Valdegamberi, Anton Shekhovtsov wrote.
Bertolasi is yet another actor with Russian influence. He was an associate researcher at Tiberio Graziani’s pro-Russian Institute of Advanced Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences and used to be—perhaps still is—an Italian correspondent for a number of Russian state-controlled media, including Rossiya Segodnya and Sputnik (banned by the EU for spreading Russian disinformation). Bertolasi also played a significant role in the creation of the Lega party’s Lombardy-Russia Cultural Association.
It was probably Bertolasi’s work as a correspondent for Russian state-controlled media that determined the name “writer” as his field alias in the Russian services, Shekhovtsov suggested, adding that there could be a link between Bertolasi and Russian FSB officer Aleksey Stovbun.
According to a Latvian public media investigation, in Latvia Stovbun handled activities by Igors Bobirs, who died in custody in 2023.
The Latvian investigation also identified Serbian pro-Kremlin activist Dragana Trifković as yet another Russian influence actor linked to Stovbun. In 2014, she was an “observer” at some fake election in the DNR and hung out with Russian neo-Nazis (source). Fake monitors have “observed” fake elections in the Russian-controlled part of Donbass.
Dragana Trifković worked with the former boss of the Wagner private military company, accused of alleged war crimes in Africa, Ukraine, and Syria, Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s African network in 2018. She also developed contacts with the Alternative for Germany (AfD), known for far-right, anti-EU, and pro-Kremlin views. In a dedicated report, Anton Shekhovtsov analyzed how the structures of “Putin’s Chef,” Yevgeniy Prigozhin, interfered in electoral processes in African countries.
This investigation indicates that Russian operatives may be behind the pro-Kremlin campaign aimed at reducing support for Ukraine in Western countries, including Italy. The poster campaign’s scale and presence in several EU countries suggest heavy funding and coordination at the European level, not just in Italy. The organizers unmistakably include far-right groups, long-standing Kremlin allies, whom Moscow uses as agents of influence and destabilization in Europe.
