Italy’s Lega Nord party leader Matteo Salvini said Thursday that a report on possible Russian influence in the crisis of government that led to the collapse of outgoing Premier Mario Draghi’s executive last week was “fake news”.

“An official denial is on the way. It is extremely serious that fake news is being spread. We are with the West and with democracy,” he said.

Thursday’s edition of the daily newspaper La Stampa ran a report about possible contact made between Antonio Capuano, an advisor on international affairs to Salvini, and Oleg Kostyukov, a Russian embassy official.
It reported that Moscow had asked about the possibility of the League withdrawing its ministers from Draghi’s government.
“Let’s be serious,” Salvini said on the fringes of a conference of farmers’ association Coldiretti when asked about whether Russia had a hand in the crisis of government.

The head of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, immediately demanded all the necessary explanations “to ascertain whether Russia brought down the Draghi government”. The secretary of the League, Matteo Salvini, for his part, replied that “this is nonsense” and that “it is the well-known, imaginary scenario, with Putin, fascism, racism, and nationalism as the main elements”.

Cabinet Secretary Franco Gabrielli’s office said that it was not true that Italy’s intelligence services had reported on alleged contacts between Capuano and the Russian embassy.
La Stampa defended its piece though, saying it was based on an informal summary of intelligence work on this issue.
Draghi’s ruling coalition broke down last week the League, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), and the 5-Star Movement (M5S) failed to back a confidence vote, leading to the dissolution of parliament and snap elections on September 25.
In the past, Salvini expressed his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin on several occasions. Salvini has, however, condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.