Russian FSB caught funding Italian ‘nationalist’ party League of the North
The Italian party "League of the North" received funds from the FSB
The Insider confirmed that an active agent of the Fifth Service of the FSB was present at a secret meeting with the leaders of the Italian far-right party "League of the North", which took place in October 2018 in Moscow.
In the summer of 2019, the BuzzFeed portal reported that it had received an audio recording of a secret meeting, which took place on October 18, 2018 in the Moscow Metropol. It was attended by Gianluca Savoini, the right hand of the leader of the "North League" Matteo Salvini, then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of Italy (now he is the Minister of Transport).
Judging by the recording, the participants of the meeting discussed financing schemes, and Savoini promised to support the Kremlin. According to L'Espresso, it was decided at the meeting that in exchange for supporting the Kremlin's policy, Russian companies associated with people from Vladimir Putin's entourage will transfer 65 million euros to the Northern League through the fictitious sale of three million metric tons of diesel fuel. It is not known for sure whether the scheme was implemented, but The Insider found that in 2018-2019, Savoini and his partymate Claudio D'Amico visited Moscow several times a month, sometimes arriving for one day.
Salvini repeatedly spoke in support of the Kremlin, came to Moscow and called for the lifting of sanctions against Russia - even after the outbreak of a full-scale conflict in Ukraine. In May 2022, a scandal broke out: Salvini had to cancel another visit to Moscow when it turned out that the Russian embassy had bought him tickets.
The voices of three Russians can be heard on the audio that got to the journalists - they say that they will need the support of Vladimir Pligin (former deputy and adviser to Vyacheslav Volodin) and a certain deputy prime minister (presumably Dmitry Kozak).
In 2019, The Insider identified two Russian participants of the meeting. One of them, Ilya Yakunin, then worked in the Direct Investment Agency, controlled by Vladimir Pligin's company. Journalists learned very little about the second, Andrei Kharchenko: his opponent in the defense of the candidate's thesis in philosophy was the ultra-right ideologist ideologist Alexander Dugin, son of the GRU Lieutenant General. Later, Kharchenko often accompanied Dugin on foreign trips - Dugin himself saw Savoini literally a month before the meeting in "Metropol".
Now journalists have learned that although Kharchenko is listed in the office of Assistant to the President Igor Levitin, in fact he is assigned to military unit 26047 - the FSB Operational Information and International Relations Service (Fifth Service). He still actively flies abroad as part of Russian delegations, but he already accompanies Levitin.
As The Insider notes, Italy may resume the investigation into the case of international corruption, which was initiated when it became known about the meeting in the Metropolis. The proceitor has come to a standstill due to the lack of evidence that Savoini's interlocutors spoke on behalf of the state.
Source: https://ruskompromat.info/news/24227-italjjanckaja_partija_liga_severa_poluchala_sredstva_ot_fsb