Yesterday the leader of Italian opposition party "Lega Nord" Matteo Salvini arrived in Moscow. Recently, he expressed his desire to become the Prime Minister of Italy. Salvini was one of the first Western politicians who visited Crimea after it held a referendum and once again became a part of Russia. His current visit is the fourth one.
"Since the beggining we were accused of visiting this place, of kneeling before the 'dictatorship', but now everyone understands that the wind of change is very strong, everyone feel it, and we want sanctions to be lifted," he said. He expressed his satisfaction with the results of recent presidential elections in the United States and said: "We would like the first meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump to take place in Italy in order to refresh the relations between Russia and the United States, Russia and the EU, Russia and Italy, to lift the sanctions, to recognize the Crimean Republic and acknowledge Russia as a full-fledged political and trading partner... Of course, the elections in the US will lead to the establishment of more positive relations. If international law would be better, we wouldn't have to wait for the election of Mr. Trump. Then the people of Europe would recognize free choice of Crimean residents. In this sense, Clinton's defeat is wonderful news. I hope that soon we will defeat Matteo Renzi and everything will be fine."
Salvini confirmed that "Lega Nord" supports maintaining close relations with Russia and insists on the abolition of anti-Russian sanctions, which resulted in considerable economic losses for both countries. He also reminded that Italian parliamentarians and businessmen were among the first people to visit Crimea after a referendum on reunification with Russia was held in March of 2014. "We believe that it is necessary to maintain good relations between Russia and the West, both economically and geopolitically."
During the meeting with Matteo Salvini, a member of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs Sergey Zheleznyak expressed confidence that the anti-Russian policy of sanctions, imposed by European bureaucrats - is counterproductive and should remain in the past. Zheleznyak stressed the need for further development of inter-parliamentary and inter-party cooperation between Russia and Italy in order to prevent possible problems even before they occur: "The attempts of some Western politicians to make peoples and countries hostages of their ambitions, to impose their vision of the world order on everyone and make them live by someone else's rules are doomed to failure."
