“Away with the Italian honor to all Putin's men”. The Italian Radicals request, with an open letter to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the completion of the procedure revocation of honors assigned to members of Vladimir Putin's regime. And, at the same time, the awarding of the honors of the Italian Republic to the citizens of the Russian Federation Aleksej Navalny, Alexei Gorinov and Ilja Yashin. This was stated in a note by the leaders of Radicali Italiani Massimiliano Iervolino, Giulia Crivellini, Igor Boni and the exponents of the radical association Adelaide Aglietta Silvja Manzi and Giulio Manfredi.
“Dear President,
starting from 2014, with the first aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the governments that preceded it granted 29 (twenty-nine) honors of the Italian Republic to exponents of Vladimir Putin's regime.
Following the second aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the repeated complaints by the undersigned Radicali Italiani movement, the previous Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio, had set up an ad hoc commission at the Farnesina to carry out the revocation procedures of these honours.
With two decrees dated 9 May 2022, published in the Official Gazette of 25 May 2022, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, revoked four of the aforementioned honors "due to unworthiness", attributed to the following Russian citizens: Mikhail Mishustin (Prime Minister of the Russian Federation), Denis Manturov (Minister of Industry and Trade), Andrei Kostin (President of the Russian bank Vtb) e Viktor Yevtukov (Secretary of State of Russia).
With three successive decrees dated 8 August 2022, published in the Official Gazette of 20 August 2022, the President of the Republic revoked "for unworthiness" a further ten honors of the Italian Republic assigned to exponents of the Russian regime.
Since then, no other honors have been revoked, so to date the following Russian citizens, involved in various capacities with Putin's regime, are still "medalists": Mikhail Alexeyev (two honours); Berezkin Gregory (two honours); Dynkin Alexander; Karimova Inga; Kazikaev Valery; Kijko Mikhail; Korolev Oleg; Galitsky Sergey; Michaelson Leonid (two honours); Paramonov Aleksej (two honours); Peshkov Dmitry; Sechin Igor; Sedykh Anatoly; Shlenkina Elena; Tinkov Oleg; Torkunov Anatoly; Trotsenko Roman; Usmanov Alisher; Verozub Mikhail (two honours).
Among the names listed, those of stand out Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman since 2012, and of Aleksej Paramonov, ambassador to Italy of the Russian Federation.
In recent days, Radicali Italiani has promoted a public appeal for the revocation, in particular, of the honor awarded to Dmitry Peskov, since 2017 "Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic", the most prestigious Italian honor.
The request sees numerous prominent personalities as the first signatories including Claudio Martelli, Marco Bentivogli, Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, Yaryna Grusha Possamai, Nona Mikhelidze, Oles Horodetskyy, Sofia Ventura, Vincenzo Camporini, Alessandro De Nicola, Marta Ottaviani, Gianni Vernetti, Pier Virgilio Dastoli, Guido Vitiello, Mariano Giustino, Aldo Torchiaro, Iuri Maria Prado, Christian Rocca, Caterina Simiand and many others.
On the occasion of the imminent anniversary of the Republic Day, we therefore ask you to take urgent action to complete the procedure for revoking these honors.
The Italian Republic cannot afford to continue paying homage to people who have collaborated and still collaborate in the perpetuation of the criminal regime by Vladimir Putin.
We also intend to ask you - even in partial compensation with respect to the dozens of honors assigned to exponents of a regime, the Russian one, which is demonstrating in Ukraine, day after day, crime after crime, its terrorist and criminal nature - awarded honours of the Italian Republic to the following three Russian citizens, currently imprisoned for having had the courage to publicly oppose this regime:
- Aleksei Navalny, historic opponent of Putin's regime, who escaped a poisoning attempt, arrested two years ago, subjected to sham trials, sentenced to nine years in penal colony, in a regime of maximum security;
- Aleksei Gorinov, a Russian citizen sentenced to seven years in prison solely for publicly expressing his NO to Russian aggression in Ukraine;
- Ilya Yashin, historic opponent of Putin's regime, sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for having denounced war crimes committed by the Russian military in Ukraine on YouTube, in Bucha.
Having stated and considered all of the above, certain of the urgency of these requests, we look forward to a kind reply and send you our best regards".
