Russia keeps on taking efforts to lift sanctions making advantage of coronavirus pandemic in Europe. The Kremlin has enhanced the ops to gain control and back up political actors lobbying for the countries’ secession from the European Union and the eurozone. Meanwhile, the informational ops amid the pandemic remain the key mechanism for propaganda and fake news, in flagrant violation of the democratic values and media working principles.
In late April 2020, some Russian media published the Crimea-24 investigation results as for fake supplies of Russia’s aid from Crimea to Italy. A letter of the famous Italian lawyer, Alexandro Maria Tirelli was quoted in the way of evidence. He said that Anna Koskova (1991, born in Petersburg), the Director of the Russian Culture and Language Center in Sebastopol contacted him and offered help saying that she had a million face masks and was ready to send them to Italy. Anna Koskova turned to Tirelli requesting to tell the Italian public, media and medical professionals that Italy would soon receive aid from Sebastopol (the Crimea, its annexation being the ground for international sanctions against Moscow). Mr. Tirelli fulfilled her request, telling the doctors and the media in Naples about that and asking them to make the headlines for that planned event.
Ms. Koskova assured that the protection means would be sent as soon as possible. Then she said that the promised masks (respirators) were available, but, in small quantity, and there was no sense to send them. After that, communication ceased altogether. As a result, Tirelli bought 100,000 goggles and non-contact thermometers through his contacts in the Chinese diaspora of Italy and said that was the aid from Sebastopol. When asked by the Crimea-24 journalists, Anna Koskova said that she had not promised the masks, but those taken in were at the warehouse, though she refused to show these protective means.
Case study for medical supplies to Italy from Sebastopol proves that attorney Tirelli turned out to participate in Russia’s military intelligence mission.
Tirelli was chosen as a victim during this mission because he was the founder of Libertà Giustizia e Repubblica, the Italian political party lobbying for Italy’s monetary sovereignty, i.e. the country’s secession from the eurozone. Besides, Russia’s state propaganda media quoted Tirelli in the light of sanction lifting. Thus, Tirelli’s political views in end goal made him an ideal instrument for Russian intelligence.
A mission involving Tirelli in a Russian media campaign in Italy using the crisis over Covid-19 was on the sidelines of the convoy prepared by the Russian Ministry of Defense to be sent to Italy, thus indicating a package approach of Russian security agencies in taking advantage of the crisis in Italy. As described in La Stampa investigation, the main task of the missions is to prepare the public opinion in Italy to the lifting of sanctions, legalizing Crimea as part of Russia and improving the Kremlin’s image with simultaneous contrasting his assistance with European Union politics.
Anna Koskova moved from St. Petersburg to Crimea, where she lives with her common-law husband Mokej Rusinov, 1981 (born in Voronezh) – a journalist with the international news agency “Russia Today” and the leading Sebastopol television channel STV. He is also a journalist for the “Military Review” portal, part of Russia’s MoD media group and the chief editor for the “Crimean insider”. The information published by Koskova and Rusinov proves that they take part in the disinformation campaign on the citizens of the EU member states and promoting Russia’s official stance on international issues.
In 2014, Mokej Rusinov, by his own admission, actively supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, working with Mozgovoy, the Phantom unit leader.
Anna Koskova is the academic secretary with the Southern Europe Research Center. She also introduced herself as the Russia Today employee (screen shot proof).
Ms. Koskova, according to her story, helped Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, and the leaders of Lega Nord (Northern League) party, siding with Russia, to translate into Russian.
In 2019, it was reported that Salvini’s assistant negotiated with the Kremlin about oil supplies for the Italian Eni oil and gas company.
The deal discount, amounting to about $ 65 million, should have promoted the Northern League. Paolo Grimoldi, who is the founder of the “Friends of Putin” group at the Italian parliament, initiated an appeal to the Russian government to send military assistance to Italy, passed on by Ulrich Oehme, a member of the German AfG.
Rusinov arranged a visit to Crimea for Giulietto Chiesa, suspected of collaborating with Soviet and then Russian special agencies, in particular, taking part in information and political ops in Estonia and Latvia. Rusinov also arranged Chiesa’s participation as an observer during the elections in the Russian puppet LPR project in November 2018.Thus, an attempt to use attorney Tirelli for the mission to lift sanctions against Russia indicates a high degree of Russia’s infiltration into the political life of Italy, the use of humanitarian and cultural channels to influence the foreign policy of the European Union.
