The Russian Aid to Italy During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Russian – Italian Ties
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Department of Political Science Chair of The Role of Head of State in Foreign Policy (Russian Case) The Russian Aid to Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian – Italian ties Supervisor: Co-Supervisor: Prof. Igor Pellicciari Prof. Riccardo Mario Cucciolla Candidate: Michele Aristarco Student ID 637172 ACADEMIC YEAR: 2019/2020 Contents INTRODUCTION: The Global COVID-19 pandemic 4 A General Outlook 4 – COVID-19 pandemic in Italy 5 CHAPTER 1: Russian Operations in Italy 7 Different views on Russia 8 – Italy and its continuous relationship with Russia 10 – The Russian army in Italy 11 – Russian operators in action 12 – Russian MoD vs La Stampa 13 – The US authorisation 16 CHAPTER 2: Russian Geopolitical Interest 21 Why Russia decided to help Italy 22 – Russia and Europe 24 – The New Iron Curtain 29 – Russia and Turkey 32 – Russia and the Middle East 36 CHAPTER 3: Strategic-Healthcare Intelligence 42 A Healthcare Operation 42 – Russian Intelligence in Italy? 44 – The Race for Vaccine and Russian Vaccine 46 CHAPTER 4: Russians and Italy: A consistent popularity 48 Domestic political consensus: the military mission to Italy 48 – The Constitutional Referendum 50 – History and Diplomacy 51 – Art and popularity 56 – Trade and Economic Ties, Tourism 58 4.1. Campari in Russia 63 History of Campari Group in Russia 63 – The Future Prospective and the Russian market 65 – The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia 67 2 CHAPTER 5: Russia and Europe 69 A Complicated Cohabitation 71 – Ukraine 73 – Belarus 75 – The Navalny Poisoning and Russian Domestic Issues 79 – Future of European – Russian relations 81 Conclusions 84 The Scope of this Dissertation 84 – Russian military operation in Italy and Russia’s main aim 86 – The Future of Italian – Russian ties 93 – Russia and its place in the world 95 Bibliography 99 Online Sources 102 3 Introduction: The Global COVID-19 pandemic A General Outlook. At the beginning of 2020 the world has seen the explosion of a disastrous pandemic due to a new coronavirus named by the World Health Organisation as COVID-19. The virus originated in the city of Wuhan, located in the Chinese province of Hubei. Despite the fact, it is still uncertain when the first infection started, followed by the spreading of the virus, what seems clear is that this coronavirus originated in bats, which came to contact with humans, highly likely in the animal markets of the city. What is certain though, is the lethality of this new coronavirus (similar coronavirus already appeared in the recent past, as SARS for example), made thousands of victims in China and spread rapidly all around the world. Unfortunately, the virus could expand and move forward because it was unknown to the Chinese and International scientific community and there were very few tools to contain the infections and to trait the patients affected by COVID-19. In the very beginning, the Western countries, the European Union and the United States underestimated the danger of a possible world pandemic and governments attempted to reassure citizens that there were no chances for this virus to come in and cause the same effects it did in the Chinese Province of Hubei, who was forced to lock down the city of Wuhan and close the entrance and exit from it. Scientists agreed with that opinion, claiming the situation in Europe was no comparable to what was happening in China. Soon, at the end of February the first focus of contagion came out in Northern Italy, one in the town of Codogno, Lombardy and the other in the small town of Vo’ Euganeo, near Padua, in the Veneto region. The two towns were put under total lockdown regime as police and military surrounded the towns’ border to guarantee that nobody could enter or exit them. However, the very two first “red zones” as they were defined by the government provision, did not stop the infection, which kept spreading instead in the following weeks inside Lombardy, Veneto and then propagated in the other regions of Northern Italy. Presumably, the virus came to Italy weeks before the acknowledgment of the Codogno and Vo’ cases, even though it is hard to determine the exact date when the virus moved from China to Europe and then to Italy. As the explosion of this pandemic put in serious trouble national governments and the same WHO, a collective response became even harder to be given. Reciprocal accusations of importing the contagion received attention by national and international medias and Italy, as the first European country to be seriously affected by this new coronavirus (quite disrespectful was a French advertisement where a man spits the virus on a pizza), became the unwilling protagonist of headline news around the world. The spreading of the new coronavirus lead to unprecedented decisions and provisions by the Italian government, who initially imposed movement restrictions in the province of Lodi, followed by the restrictions over the whole region of Lombardy and a final complete lockdown in the whole country. Citizens were forced not to move from their houses, except for the hospitals and healthcare system workers; the majority of companies and services closed their factories and continued to work from home. As the virus caused a high number of victims and stressed the capabilities of the Italian 4 national healthcare system, the government supported the highest level of restrictions in terms of movement, denied the possibility to move from a region to another and recommended Italian citizens to stay home in order to contain the spread of the virus. As the lockdown measures were adopted, eventually the virus reached the other European countries and every nation adopted different solutions to fight the new coronavirus: some followed the example of Italy, others implemented lighter forms of restrictions, some instead refuse to take action against the contagion and fail to contain it. In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson was infected too and was forced to change his mind on the measures to adopt. A curious case is represented by Sweden, who, in the beginning, seemed to manage the complicated situation, although eventually, the absence of any containment of movement caused an increasing number of cased and suffered a high number of deaths. The United States also failed to implement countermeasures as the Trump administration doubted the natural origin of the new coronavirus; tensions between the US president and Chinese government escalated. As the British Prime Minister Johnson, US President Donald Trump has been expressly criticised, not only by the medias but also from his counterparts, the Democratic party, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Vice-president and 2020 presidential elections’ frontrunner Joe Biden. Despite the setting up of a national task force led by Dr Anthony Fauci, the Trump administration has seemed sceptical toward this new coronavirus and the need to impose strong lockdown measures to avoid the spread of infections over the USA. Whether because of his personal ideas or because a large part of his voters were against the lockdown of cities and businesses, US President Trump did not agree with the measures Dr Fauci suggested to be implemented, denying though any intention of suspending the task force or firing the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases (NIAID); presumably, the electoral campaign for his re- election put him in a difficult position. Following riots between the African-American community and police due to the murder of a man called George Floyd, moved the attention toward racial domestic issues, ignoring that the virus kept on circulating and infecting people. Skirmish with China did not stop at all, as Beijing at the end of June, adopted reinforcements of its laws over the city Hong Kong, claiming the right to manage domestic affairs and condemning comments of US administration officials as interference in Chinese affairs. COVID-19 pandemic in Italy Italy was the very first European country, who was massively hit by COVID-19, despite the virus had been circulating through the whole continent at the time. The Italian government adopted though strict measures to stop the infection and contagion and decided on march 9th for a total lockdown. In the beginning, it was seen as a drastic decision and critics came from the opposition parties and business associations; other EU countries postponed the adoption of these measures, although the dramatic escalation of the epidemic in Italy created a sympathetic feeling toward the Italian people. As a result, Italy received a massive help from several countries, not just from its EU partners but also from major international ones as the US, Russia, China and many others. Despite the virus spread and created a world pandemic affecting the whole planet, Italy, from 5 mid-February to mid-march, seemed to be the only country, after China, who was suffering because of this new coronavirus. Later, France, Germany, Spain and other EU members adopted severe measures to stop the virus contagion, but waited longer as they were expecting devastating evidence to follow the Italian example. Thus, Italy received a high coverture by international medias, which led to an international campaign to help a rich European country, a member of G7 and NATO, a campaign which can be read as a real geopolitical competition between superpowers, but also a new wave of international aid distribution; indeed, before it was usual for rich countries as Italy and its European partners to provide aid to poor and developing countries or to the ones who were recovering after civil wars or conflicts against neighbours. During this recent pandemic instead, Italy was the one who needed aid and help from its partners and among the donors compared countries, which were used to be aid recipients as for example Albania, Ukraine, Romania or Egypt.