Thread by @aspeciale

So, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was interviewed by #Italy's TV channel Rete 4 (owned by Berlusconi's Mediaset/Media for Europe)

It was the first time he was on Western media since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine.

Some highlights but first...

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... be warned that, in keeping with Italian tradition of softball journalism, the interview was mostly polite prompts for Lavrov's monologues, without almost any attempt to confront him with facts.

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"That's your point of view, but Zelenskiy has a different point of view," the interviewer said at one point -- when Lavrov said again that Russia only targets military structures, in Kyiv and in the rest of Ukraine.

But what did Lavrov say? Read on.

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Basically it was all about the Nazis and the West that control Ukraine, and how Russia only tries to protect and free the civilian population of Ukraine.

What about Zelenskiy being Jewish?

"Hitler too was of Jewish descent... The biggest antisemites are the Jews."

4/

(No response from the journalist to the sentence above...)

Most Ukrainians are tired of the oppression of their government, which is an instrument of neo-Nazis and the US, according to Lavrov.

And of course, "Russia had no alternative."

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Lavrov said Russia wanted to negotiate a new strategic stability treaty regulating also ultrasonic missiles -- but they US rebuffed.

"And now we'll have to go it alone"

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On Bucha: "It's so clear it's fake that anyone can tell with just one look."

No reply from the journalist to such a blatantly false claim.

Lavrov said there are Western officers among "neo-Nazi troops" fighting in Ukraine.

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On #Italy, Lavrov said that Russia was initially "surprised" by the strong support for sanctions and Ukraine, but now "we got used to it."

“We thought the Italian people were different.”

Mind you, it's not just Berlusconi, who boasted of his close friendship with Putin.

8/

Many Italian politicians have recent and close ties to Russia. Not to mention large parts of the elite, as shown by the fact that Lavrov's first interview with Western media was in Italy.

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On gas, he probably made it more difficult for companies to find a workaround to reconcile new Russian rules on gas payments and EU sanctions.

"Supplies are considered paid not when euros or dollars arrive but when they are converted into rubles, which can't be stolen."

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For Lavrov, international sanctions are a theft of Russian money.

But he had a strong line when he said that Europeans want to keep receiving gas without paying for it.

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Finally, there were long asides about Yemen and Mali, about a Zelenskiy interview on Japanese media and a tweet by the Russian foreign ministry on Vatican (No, there wasn't an hidden message, according to Lavrov.)

All in all, a ghastly and surreal show.

12/END