Russian propaganda is failing: two defeats in a single day
On 27 January, the Golf Hotel Corallo in the Italian town of Montecatini Terme was due to host an online conference, “For a New Multipolar World”, featuring Aleksandr Dugin, an exponent of the “Russian world”. The conference had originally been scheduled at the Grand Hotel Guinigi in Lucca, Tuscany.
The organisers moved the conference to a new, secret venue after more than twenty Italian political and civic organisations, including Liberi Oltre le Illusioni, Italia Viva and +Europa, held a protest rally in Piazza Napoleone in Lucca.
Those who had signed up received the address of the new venue on Telegram only a few hours before the conference was due to start. According to eyewitnesses, around 15 people turned up, but when they arrived at the Golf Hotel Corallo they learned that the conference had been cancelled at the last minute.
One of the conference participants, Alessandro Ziviani, wrote on Facebook that he had tried to attend the conference in Montecatini but “found no fewer than twenty law enforcement officers outside the hotel, including police and some in plain clothes”.
The Mayor of Montecatini Terme, Luca Baroncini, said: “We firmly condemn Dugin’s presence by video link in Montecatini Terme. His unquestioning support for Putin’s regime and for the brutal invasion of Ukraine, of which he is considered the ideologue, makes our shame at his symbolic presence in the town all the greater.”
This is no longer about a single cancelled propaganda event, but about Italian parties and organisations joining the fight against Russian propaganda, and local authorities refusing to see it on their territory.
