President Sergio Mattarella is
absolutely serene and invites to read the text of the speech
pronounced in Marseille, Quirinale sources said Friday after a
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson accused the head of State
of "blasphemous inventions".
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Friday
accused the Italian president of "blasphemous inventions" after
he compared Russia to the Nazi Third Reich in relation to its
invasion of Ukraine in a speech at the University of Marseilles
last week, according to Tass.
Commenting on the Russian foreign ministry's statements, Premier
Giorgia Meloni said the attacks offended the whole nation.
"The insults of the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman who
described as "blasphemous inventions" the words of the President
of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, offend the entire Italian
nation, which the Head of State represents", Meloni said in a
note.
"I express my full solidarity, as well as that of the entire
Government, to President Mattarella, who has always firmly
supported the condemnation of the aggression perpetrated against
Ukraine", the prime minister said.
Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa expressed support for the
president, writing on social media that the statements of the
foreign ministry spokesperson were "inappropriate and out of
place", and that Mattarella is the "guardian of the values of
the Republic and a point of reference for the nation".
Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani expressed
solidarity to Mattarella with a post on X over Moscow's
"offensive words", voicing "full confidence in the work of the
Head of State, recognized by all as an influential man of
peace".
The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), the largest
opposition member, Elly Schlein, also expressed solidarity and
gratitude to the president saying "the democratic community
fully identifies with the words and the action of the Head of
State, the guardian of the Constitution and of democracy".
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