Overview

• Russia’s Foreign Ministry published a ‘russofobi’ blacklist on July 30 that named President Sergio Mattarella, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and other Italian officials.
• Italy’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador, denouncing the list as a provocation against the Republic and offering institutional solidarity to the president.
• At the Ventaglio ceremony Mattarella condemned Russia’s Ukraine offensive as a “boulder” on European peace, warned of a resurgence of antisemitism and urged the urgent creation of a common EU defense policy.
• The president sharply criticized the Gaza campaign’s repeated attacks on ambulances, children and hospitals as evidence of an “insistence on indiscriminate killing.”
• Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni branded Moscow’s blacklist an “operation of propaganda” and pressed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.