Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has criticized Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, for statements in support of Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
Salvini, who also heads Italy’s interior ministry, said during an interview with the Washington Post newspaper published on July 19 that Russia had the right to annex the Crimean peninsula because there had been “a referendum and 90 percent of the people voted for the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation.”
The high-ranking Italian politician also claimed that the 2014 EuroMaidan revolution in Ukraine, which occurred shortly before the Russian invasion of Crimea and Donbas, was “a pseudo-revolution funded by foreign powers — similar to the Arab Spring.”
“There are some historically Russian zones with Russian culture and traditions which legitimately belong to the Russian Federation,” the newspaper quoted Salvini as saying.
He also added that the sanctions on Russia must be lifted because “they didn’t prove to be useful, and according to the data, they hurt Italian exports.”
In Ukraine and elsewhere, Salvini’s comments drew heavy criticism.
“Those advocating the annexation and not believing in the existence of international law will inevitably pay for it,” Ukraine’s top diplomat Klimkin wrote on his Twitter page late on July 20. “This is how it always happened in history.”
“Regarding the Maidan, let us retain the right to say what and how it was. Because it was done by Ukrainians, and we have paid a very high price for freedom.”
In an official comment published on July 20, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry also denounced Salvini’s allegation as questioning Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and contradicting “real facts and recognized principles and provisions of international law.”
Matteo Salvini is known as a member of the Lega party (earlier branded as Lega Nord), which has faced repeated accusations of ties to Russia, including that it received funding from the Kremlin’s ruling party United Russia.
Lega nonetheless persistently denies all accusations.
“This is fake news,” Salvini commented on the alleged financing by the Kremlin during the Washington Post interview. “We sued those who reported it. It is not true. We never took one euro, one ruble or one dollar.”
Salvini did, however, admit that Lega had an agreement with United Russia that “involved collaboration between youth movements on cultural and economic themes, just as we have with other parties such as the National Front in France and the Freedom Party of Austria.
