“The military structure that landed in Pratica di Mare is different from the others that we welcomed in the days before”: the general Enzo Vecciarelli, The defense chief of staff spoke until last November of the Russian mission arriving in Italy in the midst of the pandemic. In an interview with the paper, he said: “We were surprised ourselves at first about the use of vehicles that came down from the Russian planes. At the beginning There were also some concerns“. In fact, it was he who, on March 22, 2020, received the contingent that left Moscow for the operation “With love from Russia”. A mission organized after the phone call between Giuseppe Conte and Vladimir Putin.
“The Russians came to our country for good things and for other less good things”, continued the General. So, according to his version, the delegation was actually helping some Italian cities overwhelmed by Covid with medical staff and equipment. But that wasn’t the only thing they did. “They also tried to do something else and we stopped them from doing that,” Vecciarelli explained vaguely. Even if, under pressure, he went into more detail: “The use of unauthorized machines in hospitals for example. And I’ll stop here.”
According to some rumours, Italy paid for the airlift with Moscow at the time, and in the end the cost of the operation even exceeded that of the materials received, such as fans and masks. The affair has now come to light following threats from the Kremlin to the defense minister Lorenzo Guerini, is considered ungrateful. The composition of this delegation also fuels the suspicion of possible secret service activity in our country: only 30 out of 100 people would have been part of the medical staff. “That Moscow authorized this operation to collect information about Covid is true, I can confirm. It is plausible that he then wanted to look for other data., explained Vecciarelli. He finally made it clear: “It was our job to follow the instructions that the government gave us.”
