Zakharova urges Meloni to heed Al Bano's call to reopen doors to Russia

The singer's appeal

Albano Carrisi, known as Al Bano, gave an interview to the publisher Sandro Teti Editore, which was published on YouTube on 21 October. The Apulian singer, who won the Sanremo festival in 1984, addressed Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni directly. He said that Russia is a country that loves Italy and has a lot of Italian sap, and he asked why sanctions should be imposed on Moscow. He proposed giving flowers and shares to Russia instead, and he called for an end to what he described as a damned war.

Dear Giorgia, I love you. I would love you even more if we open the doors to Russia. I am a man of peace.

In the interview he presented himself as a man of peace who wants the conflict to end, and he made his request personal by addressing the premier by her first name.

Zakharova's Telegram post

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of Russia's foreign ministry, shared the interview on Telegram in a post reported on 24 October. She described the singer's appeal as public, sincere and emotional, and said he had urged Meloni to stop sanctions, reopen doors to Russia and work concretely toward a lasting peace in Ukraine. She then asked whether his voice would be heard in Rome. Zakharova also argued that Italian authorities seem to struggle to accept voices that depart from the dominant political discourse. She linked this to recent events, saying that young Italians protesting were met with a search for a Russian lead and that citizens voicing discontent were suspected of foreign influence. With irony, she asked whether the next target of Italian intelligence investigations would be Al Bano.

What the coverage shows

Coverage published on 24 October repeats the same passages from the interview and from the Telegram post. None of the articles report a response from the Italian government to the Russian spokeswoman or to the singer. The singer is described as a long-running favourite in Russia, which gives the appeal a weight in Moscow that it would not carry elsewhere. The post challenges the Italian government's diplomatic line on Russia, and it does so by using a celebrity voice rather than an official one.

Points of tension

The exchange puts the Italian government's position on sanctions against a voice from within Italian popular culture. Zakharova's post links an appeal from a singer to a debate about foreign influence and protest in Italy, a link the articles present only as her claim. Al Bano's remarks were addressed to Meloni personally and were framed as a plea for peace in Ukraine. The articles do not report whether Rome plans to respond to either the singer or the Russian foreign ministry.