Russian Propaganda Narratives Infiltrate Italian School Textbooks According to Senate Report

Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da nar­ra­tives have infil­trat­ed Ital­ian school text­books, with an Ital­ian Sen­ate report reveal­ing that Krem­lin talk­ing points are shap­ing how stu­dents learn about Ukraine and Moscow. On 24 Sep­tem­ber 2025, Decode39 report­ed that the Gino Ger­mani Insti­tute ana­lyzed 28 mid­dle school text­books from lead­ing pub­lish­ers and found pro-Russ­ian nar­ra­tives present across all mate­ri­als, poten­tial­ly con­di­tion­ing the crit­i­cal think­ing of future Ital­ian cit­i­zens. The arti­cle begins:

A report by the Gino Ger­mani Insti­tute warns that Russ­ian strate­gic nar­ra­tives have found their way into Ital­ian mid­dle school text­books, shap­ing per­cep­tions of Ukraine and Moscow in ways that echo Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da. Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion of the new report by the Gino Ger­mani Insti­tute, it emerged that recur­ring Russ­ian nar­ra­tives in mid­dle school text­books risk shap­ing the world­view of future Ital­ian gen­er­a­tions. Pre­sent­ed in the Ital­ian Sen­ate by Sen­a­tor Mar­co Lom­bar­do, the report analysed 28 text­books from lead­ing pub­lish­ers, cov­er­ing edi­tions before and after Rus­si­a’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine.

Read more: https://decode39.com/11912/russian-narratives-trickle-into-italian-schools-senate-warns/

Key Points

• The Gino Ger­mani Insti­tute found pro-Krem­lin errors in every sin­gle text­book ana­lyzed, with no books found to be free from Russ­ian narratives.
• Research reveals strik­ing con­ti­nu­ity with Krem­lin talk­ing points, which cov­er top­ics rang­ing from the Don­bas to Kiev’s history.
• Ambas­sador Pier Francesco Zazo warns Italy is par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions dat­ing back to the Tsarist era.
• Law­mak­ers are push­ing for nation­al and Euro­pean safe­guards in cur­ric­u­la and pub­lish­ing to build cog­ni­tive resilience.

Russian Influence Operations Target Italy: Social Networks, Television, and Media

Italy has become a pri­ma­ry tar­get for Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions through a sophis­ti­cat­ed net­work that involves social net­works, tele­vi­sion, and news­pa­pers, with the pri­ma­ry goal of con­di­tion­ing pub­lic opin­ion by attack­ing politi­cians aligned with Kiev and sup­port­ing those who advance pro-Russ­ian views. The net­work com­pris­es par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, man­agers, lob­by­ists, jour­nal­ists, and social media cam­paigns uti­liz­ing plat­forms rang­ing from Telegram and Twit­ter to niche sites like Gab and Par­ler, which oper­ate through dozens of far-right, pro-Russ­ian pro­files that often inter­sect with COVID-19 deniers. Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions have pen­e­trat­ed Ital­ian main­stream tele­vi­sion, where pro-Russ­ian nar­ra­tives have gained strength since the start of the inva­sion, with Russ­ian com­men­ta­tors poten­tial­ly on Putin’s pay­roll appear­ing reg­u­lar­ly on prime time shows to debate the war and spread Krem­lin propaganda.

The most sig­nif­i­cant pen­e­tra­tion involves Mat­teo Salvini’s far-right Lega par­ty, which coop­er­ates with Russ­ian influ­ence group Tsar­grad and has been sub­ject to a com­plex fund­ing scheme involv­ing secret record­ings at Moscow’s Metropol Hotel where asso­ciates dis­cussed chan­nel­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars in Russ­ian oil mon­ey to the par­ty. Italy’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty extends beyond finan­cial cor­rup­tion to include Gior­gia Mel­oni’s posi­tion in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance, which casts shad­ows on her stat­ed sup­port for Ukraine despite coali­tion part­ners like Sil­vio Berlus­coni who exchange gifts and let­ters with Putin.

Exter­nal References:

• A Secret Record­ing Reveals How Rus­sia Tried To Fun­nel Mil­lions To Mat­teo Salvini’s Lega Party
• Caught Red Hand­ed: Russ­ian Financ­ing Scheme in Italy High­lights Europe’s Vulnerabilities
• #Elec­tion­Watch: How Rus­sia-Italy Rela­tions are Impact­ing the Ital­ian Elections

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.