On 5 June 2022, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera disclosed the existence of a surveillance program targeting “pro-Russian” personalities in the country. It is overseen by the Department of Information for Security (Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza); an intelligence service which reports directly to the Prime Minister.

The Italian news agency ANSA published bulletin N°4 of this program, entitled Hybrid Bulletin, covering the period from 15 April to 15 May. We can therefore deduce that bulletin N°1 covered the period from 15 January to 15 February. If confirmed, it would indicate that this program was launched more than a month before the Russian intervention in Ukraine.

In this Italian intelligence report, our friend and contributor, geographer Manlio Dinucci, is singled out as the “most dangerous” source [1].

Accepting the report at face value, Corriere della Sera even claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned Dinucci in his Victory Day speech, which is a blatant lie. ‎

One can logically infer that the decision made by left-wing Italian daily Il Manifesto to censor Manlio Dinucci’s article on of the strategy planned against Russia by the RAND Corporation [2]. was the result of external pressure.

The parliamentary committee in charge of monitoring the intelligence services (Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della Repubblica) is looking into the case.

In all likelihood, it is not Italy which is leading the charge, but is acting as part of an overarching NATO program. This would explain why the Polish Defense Council has intervened with French internet provider Orange urging it to censor Voltairenet.org in its country, which had so far only occurred with authoritarian states.