The Ukrainian community and the Consulate General of Ukraine in Naples take a stand against Russian propaganda in Italy
Congress#Main events
The Ukrainian community and the Consulate General of Ukraine in Naples take a stand against Russian propaganda in Italy
On 22 January, at the premises of the Campania journalists’ union, the Sindacato Unitario Giornalisti della Campania, a press conference was held on the propaganda now spreading in Italy.
The event was held at the initiative of the Consulate General of Ukraine in Naples, with the support of the Ukrainian cultural association My Volia and of COORDINAMENTO UNITARIO, the umbrella body of Ukrainian associations in Italy.
The Consul General of Ukraine in Naples, Maksym Kovalenko, notes that the propaganda situation in Italy is very dangerous. “When events like this are held with the support of individual public bodies, as in Modena, that is dangerous. The exhibition in Modena did not go ahead thanks to the publicity, to Italians who cared and to the Ukrainian community. And that is a very big achievement, because they wanted to set a precedent: to hold such an event in a public institution, as if with the backing of the authorities,” Maksym Kovalenko stressed, thanking the Italian journalistic community for its support.
The Ukrainian community responded quickly to the spread of propaganda. Members of the Coordination Centre of Ukrainian Associations – COORDINAMENTO UNITARIO wrote dozens of letters to numerous public institutions, to the mayors of the cities where these shameful events were planned, and even to the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, asking them to intervene and stop the propagandists’ activities.
The activists also held pickets and protests. Thanks to these efforts, some of the propagandists’ events were cancelled, in Modena for example.
Antonio Musella, a journalist with Fanpage and one of the first to draw attention to the spread of Russian propaganda, also spoke at the conference.
“One can assume that this is a genuine communication campaign across the country. Its content is the same as Russian military propaganda: the occupation of Ukraine is a ‘liberation’. Around 40,000 people were killed in Mariupol. And this is what they call liberation from Kyiv’s oppression,” Musella notes.
Those present were also shown a video appeal from residents of Mariupol, direct witnesses of Russian aggression.
The organisers of the meeting are convinced that the propagandists’ aim is to win over Italian public opinion and to justify the bloody full-scale war that the Russian Federation has unleashed against Ukraine.
That is why the Ukrainian community will always be ready to stand up to the Kremlin’s lies.
