Decoding the news. In Russia, Memorial has warned, the word “peace” has become almost synonymous with betrayal. Those who pronounce it at home can be arrested. Those who export it abroad are often received as wise statesmen. That contradiction is now visible in Italy.
Driving the news. Vagli Sotto, a town of just over 900 residents in the Apuan Alps, has unexpectedly become part of a national security debate.
- Russian Ambassador Alexey Paramonov and Consul General Kirill Ignatov recently inaugurated a plaque dedicated to Darya Dugina, the journalist and daughter of Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin killed in a 2022 attack.
- The plaque stands in a “Park of Honour” that already hosts a statue of a Russian special forces soldier killed in Syria and a street named “Russian Heart.”
Why it matters. Taken alone, the episode could be dismissed as local folklore. It should not be. Within days, Paramonov was also expected in Formello, near Rome, at a conference framed around the Franciscan tradition and titled around the idea of what should follow the end of the “Occidens Pacis Ordo” in favour of a “Novus Pacis Ordo.”
- Also in the same sequence: the Russian embassy sharply attacked the EU’s Operation Irini after the Italian inspection of a shadow-fleet tanker, while narratives surrounding an industrial explosion in Colleferro were pulled into pro-Russian propaganda circuits even after Italy’s Defence Ministry ruled out sabotage.
The big picture. Vagli, Formello, Irini and Colleferro are not the same story. But they belong to the same pattern.
- This is the logic of Soviet-era “active measures,” updated for the Italian provincial, political and media environment: use the language of peace, culture, religion and local diplomacy to soften Russia’s image, divide Western societies and make support for collective security look like a partisan or ideological choice.
The playbook is old. During the Cold War, Moscow used front organisations such as the World Peace Council to mobilise genuine pacifist sentiment in Western democracies.
- The asymmetry was central: Western publics were pushed toward unilateral disarmament, while the Soviet Union kept a heavily militarised posture and repressed dissent across the Warsaw Pact.
- In this framework, “peace” is not treated as the end of hostilities or the defence of international law. It becomes a political tool. Its function is to paralyse the adversary’s strategic will, weaken Nato cohesion and reframe resistance to aggression as warmongering.
- The same logic now moves through different channels: local networks, municipal initiatives, cultural events, religious references and social media amplification.
Zoom in: Formello. The planned conference is a textbook case. The phrase “Novus Pacis Ordo” is not just rhetorical. It suggests a new peace order after the Western one – language that aligns neatly with Moscow’s broader narrative of a multipolar system built around spheres of influence.
- The Franciscan frame gives the initiative an Italian, religious and humanitarian legitimacy. But the presence of Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela gives the event a sharper geopolitical meaning.
What complicates the picture. Italian institutional participation, even formal or ceremonial, risks blurring the line between a genuine interfaith or humanitarian initiative and a foreign influence operation.
- That is why the public question raised by Democratic Party MP Lia Quartapelle – why a minister, a senator and senior officers would take part in an event with such ambiguous framing.
- Abroad, Moscow promotes calls for peace through diplomats, emissaries and influence networks. At home, the Russian state has criminalised public dissent against the war and punished those who challenge the military apparatus. The gap between the exported language and domestic repression is not accidental.
Another layer. The religious symbolism is also difficult to separate from Russia’s own war narrative.
- Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has repeatedly blessed Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and framed it in civilisational terms. According to the Mitrokhin Archive and later Western intelligence and journalistic reconstructions, Kirill’s past has long been examined in relation to Soviet-era security structures.
- At the same time, Moscow has launched its 2027-2036 state armaments programme, described in Russian official communications and specialist reporting as a major rearmament plan involving nuclear modernisation, air-defence development and the integration of artificial intelligence into military command systems.
How it works. A religious leader blessing weapons, while the Kremlin plans a generational rearmament drive, is not a marginal detail for a conference presented under the sign of Saint Francis. It is evidence of the distance between peace as practised and peace as deployed.
- Modern cognitive operations do not need a single visible command centre.
- Diplomats unveil plaques and attend conferences. Embassies amplify hostile narratives. Parts of domestic politics, knowingly or not, provide institutional cover. Commentators, influencers and pro-Russian social media pages turn each episode into viral content.
- Each actor plays a different instrument. The overall effect is orchestral.
Colleferro shows why. Italy’s Defence Ministry ruled out sabotage, but the images of the explosion still entered pro-Russian disinformation channels. In cognitive warfare, the event does not need to be true. It needs to be useful long enough to circulate before the correction reaches the same audience.
- Timing matters: Italy is moving toward the 2027 general election with Russia, sanctions and support for Ukraine already inside the domestic political contest. That is precisely where active measures are most effective: they do not need to create divisions from scratch. They amplify existing ones.
The risk. Italy is unlikely to become broadly pro-Russian overnight.
- The more realistic danger is subtler: that each episode – a plaque, a conference, a diplomatic attack, an unverified narrative – is consumed as a daily controversy, absorbed into partisan reflexes and then forgotten.
- Recognising the pattern is not an academic exercise: as Italy approaches 2027, the defence of democratic debate will depend on seeing the orchestra before it finishes the score.
