The Russian Foreign Ministry said it expected an apology from Rome for calling for a strike against the Kremlin.

Moscow is waiting for an official apology from Rome for the post of a representative of the Italian RAI television company calling for a strike against the Kremlin. This was stated on June 19 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, during a briefing organized on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2025).

"We are awaiting an official apology from the management of RAI Broadcasting Company. But it seems to me that Italian officials should also speak out, who should say that this is not the norm for Italy. [It's] such unbridledness and such permissiveness," she said.

It is clarified that such a statement was made after a comment by the director of institutional relations of the Italian state broadcaster RAI, former TV presenter Marco Frittella, under one of the publications on the social network X (former. Twitter), which he left last week. The message referred to the alleged simultaneous presence in Moscow of Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Frittella expressed the idea of launching a missile strike in this regard, but later deleted his comment.

On February 22, Zakharova received a petition from Italian journalist and activist Vincenzo Lorusso apologizing on behalf of the Italian people for President Sergio Mattarella's remarks comparing Russia to the Third Reich. The online appeal noted that "the Italian people do not share the president's statement" and "wish to apologize to the Russian Federation and the entire Russian people."