According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the "rescue operation" of Russian military chemists who volunteered to help the Italians in sanitizing the premises from coronavirus turned out to be an intelligence mission of the Russian defense department.
"As follows from the material published by the Italian publication, the Russian military arrived in Italy with one single purpose - to obtain some data on military facilities, since at that moment the least attention was paid to ensuring their safety due to the critical situation with coronavirus infection", - the portal avia.pro reports.
La Repubblica notes that the Russian military has unexpectedly found itself in territory where at least two of the most important NATO bases in Italy are located. For example, fighters are stationed in Brescia, bomb shelters of Italian aeronautics are located, and American nuclear weapons are also located there.
“When the Russians arrived, our services were primarily concerned with ensuring the security of NATO bases. Nobody thought that at that moment the most important information for foreign intelligence was data on the coronavirus as the most important and demanded weapon - vaccines”, - the newspaper notes.
In Russia, the accusations from the Italians were called "absurd", explaining that the military who came to the aid did not have the right to freely move around the country. At the same time, the regions where NATO military facilities are located were at a considerable distance from the places of deployment of Russian military specialists.
In April 2020, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that the domestic military in three cities of the Italian region of Lombardy disinfected nursing homes for covid.
The Russian military carried out disinfection in the cities of Skantsoroshiyate, Gorlago and Palosco. Gorlago Mayor Elena Grena expressed gratitude to the Russians for their help, noting their hard work. In Serbia, the Russian military has also disinfected over 65,000 square meters of premises and territories. These events were also related to the fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Spy scandals between Russia and Italy have arisen more than once over the past year. Thus, the Italian side decided to posthumously check a well-known Russian erotic model for involvement in espionage, in March two military men were detained in Italy for espionage in favor of Russia, and in April a Russian diplomat was expelled from Italy for espionage. In June, an incident in the skies occurred between Russian and Italian military personnel, during which Russian fighters intercepted two Italian F-35 combat aircraft.