A screening of a Russian propaganda film was organized in Italy

Italian posters for screenings of the propaganda “Witness”

folignooggi.it

The day after the second anniversary of the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 25, a Russian propaganda film was shown in the Italian city of Foligno “Witness”.

The event was organized under the patronage of the city municipality, the founder of the Stand for Ukraine movement in Italy writes in his column for UP Diego Guidotti.

According to him, after the appeal of the activists, the mayor of Foligno Stefano Zuccarini justified his support of the event by the fact that the film was allegedly presented to him as being against the war.

“Everyone is talking about him here, we have already given our patronage to many events, I don’t see why we should take him away from this one. The film was presented to me as anti-war“, the Italian official said.

On the day of the screening, the city’s Ukrainian community staged a protest demanding an apology from the city hall. Member of the European Parliament from the Azione party, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, was present at the protest. He promised to inform the European and Italian parliaments about the dangerous precedent that happened in Foligno.

“The date of the Italian tour of the film “Witness” in Foligno is not the only case in Italy. Although certainly the most serious, since it took place under the patronage of the municipality and in the institutional space. But since the beginning of January, the tour of this propaganda film touched many other Italian cities, such as Bologna, Florence, Milan, Genoa. If in some cases the city administration raised the issue and insisted on canceling the show (Bologna and Florence), in many other cities it did not even express a word of disagreement, to distance itself from it, and the show was held anyway“, – notes Guidotti.

He is convinced that the showing of the film produced by the Ministry of Culture of Russia is only the tip of the iceberg of the hybrid war waged by the aggressor country in Europe.

As examples, Guidotti cites Anna Netrebko’s performance at the La Scala premiere in December 2023, a series of performances by pianist Oleksandr Romanovsky, who performed in occupied Mariupol, a series of conferences on the occupied territories of Ukraine with the participation of Putin’s ideologue Oleksandr Dugin, etc.