A six-figure deal to finance the Lega in view of the European elections. Russian money for the Italian nationalists of the Vice Prime Minster Matteo Salvini.  The same who publicly announced that he was not interested in Vladimir Putin’s money, but only supported him because they were in political harmony. The deal to finance the Lega was brought forth during the last few months in absolute confidence. Meetings, trips, emails, handshakes and drafts of contracts worth millions.   On one side of the table a loyal follower of Salvini, on the other a prestigious figure in Putin’s establishment. At the center, a stock of fuel such as “Gasoil EN 590 standards Udsl”. At least three million tons of diesel, given by a Russian company and purchased by an Italian company. Thanks to this sale the Kremlin would be able to fill the cash register of Salvini’s party on the eve of the European elections to be held next May. We must use the conditional because while we are writing, we do not know if the deal was sealed. However we can indicate various events that make up this international plot that certainly has taken place between Rome, Milan and Moscow. And above all we can reveal the aims declared:  secretly support Salvini’s party. The right wing political force that is growing the most in Europe. According to the polls it is able to pull other sovereign movements in the Old Continent.

The deal to finance the Lega that we are reporting on L’Espresso is one of the chapters of “The Black Book of the Lega”, published by Laterza, coming out on February 28. An investigation on the dark side of Matteo Salvini’s party: from the 49 million euro scam, to the unfit candidates of southern Italy, up to the international sovereigns that goes from Moscow to Washington, passing through the Vatican.

But lets get back to the deal. Everything evolves around the former spokesman, Gianluca Savoini. Matteo’s «advisor»: as he is defined by the Russian media in the articles in which the activities of his Lombardy-Russian Cultural Association are praised as well as Lega’s stand against the sanctions imposed by Europe against Russia. Although Savoini has no official role in the party and in the government, he has always been present in Salvini’s official visits to Moscow. He sealed the alliance between Lega and Putin’s party,  United Russia. He made dozens of trips to Moscow, in Crimea and in Donbass. He led the deal for the Russian financing right from the beginning.

But lets go in order, starting from an address. At number 31 of Novinsky Boulevard, a six-lane street in Moscow, three subway stops from the Red Square, there is a modern glass and concrete building. In the background the so-called “seven sisters” rise, the impressive skyscrapers Stalin had made the prisoners of the gulags build.  On the ground floor of the building, there is a big shopping center, with shops and restaurants. Above there are the offices of some of the biggest multinational companies in the world: Exxon Mobil, Repsol, Shell, Glencore, Samsung. Instead on the fifth floor there is a rather unknown company. It is called Tsargrad; at least this is what the back-lit glass wall says at the entrance to the office. Who is it?  It is one of the many companies belonging to the oligarch Kostantin Malofeev. A publishing company with a website and TV that is dedicated to transmitting religious messages in line with the conservative policies of the Kremlin. In the same office, at number 1, another two enterprises are registered. One is Marshall Capital, the investment fund of the Oligarch. The other is a small and unknown oil company. It is called Avangard Oil & Gas, it currently does not have a website (it disappeared from the Internet while we were finishing this investigation) nor is there a public presentation of its owners and its assets. Following Avangard we arrive directly to Savoini, Salvini’s representative in Russia. Some documents in fact prove that the former spokesman of the leader of Lega has been in direct contact with the managing director of Avangard, Alexey Mustafinov. The deal consisted in a commercial offer sent by the Russian oil company in July 2018 and received by Savoini. The purpose:  the sale of a quantity of diesel.  Subsequently, Avangard left the scene, but the deal did not vanish. Indeed.

THE OLIGARCH OF GOD
Before going into the details of the deal, it is useful to further understand the figure of Mr K that is Konstantin Valerevich Malofeev. The biggest connection between him and the Lega is Alexey Komov, his great friend, who on December 15, 2013 was present at the coronation of Salvini as secretary of the party at the Lingotto of Turin. Komov is the Russian ambassador of the World Congress of Families, an international association that fights against abortion, homosexual marriage and works for Malofeev in San Basilio, the biggest Russian foundation supported by private funds.

Malofeev is a Muscovite Oligarch born in 1974, with a law degree and a financial expert who started his career by working for Russian banks. Then in 2005 he founded Marshall Capital, which today has become one of the most important investment companies in the country, with an important share, in the past in public companies of the Federation such as Rostelecom. The Muscovite financial expert is not only one of the local moneybags, he is very loyal to Putin and suspected by the United States and by the European Union of having financed the conquest of Crimea and the war in Donbass, the reason for which the United States Treasury and the European Council put him on the black list. He is also accused of having had an active role in the financial relations between the Kremlin and the French of Front National. As revealed by the newspaper “Mediapart” in 2015, the Russian billionaire would have in fact contributed in making the 9 million euro loan obtained by Marine Le Pen’s party, through a bank controlled by Moscow,  easier (the First Czech Russian Bank) and another 2 million by a Cypriot company (the Vernonsia Holdings).

Scrolling down the list of Malofeev’s companies and foundations, we feel as if we are before a global economic empire. Some of these family companies take us to the British Virgin Islands, to the Seychelles, to Cyprus. Tax havens where capital is anonymous and can circulate with extreme ease. But this is not new for oligarchs like him. What is most interesting is the ideology of the person. And his connections with various extreme right wing European sovereignists. The Russian entrepreneur defines himself as a Monarch, hoping in the restoration of the Czar in Moscow. Who would be his ideal Czar? Obviously Vladimirovich. «He has never tried to be elected, he was found and put to work, in the end he was revealed as sent by God», he stated in 2017 to the British daily newspaper “The Guardian”. Malofeev is actually working on his absolutist project, the restoration of the Russian ancien régime. He even founded a college with this aim in mind. He called it the Great School of San Basilio, he wants to make it a prestigious institute where the élite of the new Russian Monarch can be bred, the one that will be able to «supply a backbone to the inevitable Czarist future» of the country.
 
PUTIN'S PHILOSOPHY
Malofeev knows that in order to achieve his political project he must also convince the élite, in the homeland as well abroad. Because on an international level, the aim is to form a new continent, a new geopolitical block led by Moscow. Eurasia. One of the structures created by the billionaire with this aim is the “analytic center”.

Katehon, a website in various languages that spreads the conservatism of the extreme right wing all over Europe. Among Katehon’s collaborators, we find for example Marine Le Pen, the French leader of Front National, allied for some time now with Salvini. Instead from Italy Alessandro Fiore writes, the son of the Fascist leader Roberto, historic leader of the Italian extreme right wing, and some journalists of Casa Pound, the movement that defined itself as “third millennium Fascists”, founded by Gabriele Adinolfi and for a short time allied with Salvini’s Lega in the Sovereign movement. Savoini also collaborated in Putin’s monarchic website. Savoini has an important acquaintance at Katehon. Aleksandr Dugin, the philosopher most admired by Putin, appointed in Italy as honorary President of the Russian Piedmont Association. In fact for some time now he has been working for the studies center of Malofeev. He edits a column entitled “Transhumanism”. On the other hand Dugin is physically also close to the billionaire’s think tank. His Eurasian Movement in fact it has its head office at the same address as Katehon, at number 7 of Tverskaya Street, one of the most elegant streets of Moscow.  It is therefore certain that a common political interest between Malofeev and Dugin exists. They both share the same vision of an anti-western world, denying homosexuality, anti-abortion petitions, the need to bring Ukraine back under Russian control, Putin’s authority over the entire European Union. But there is another detail that has been hidden until now. Dugin seems to be among the founders of the “Center of Geopolitical Competence”, together with Pyotr Suslov. According to an investigation published on February 6, 2009 by “Novaya Gazeta” (the newspaper where Anna Politkovskaja worked, killed for having revealed the Russian violence in Chechnya), Suslov is a very important person in the Russian secret service. A veteran who led secret operations in Afghanistan, Mozambique and Angola, very well introduced within the executives of the Federation and also active in private oil deals in Chechnya. According to the story told by “Novaya Gazeta”, in 2001 Suslov contributed in building the Eurasian Movement of Dugin. This is actually the circle where the philosopher most loved by Salvini’s followers moves. From Malofeev to the former Russian spies, joined in the name of traditionalism and devotion for Putin. And for business. Yes, because besides the possibility of sealing the diesel deal with the company Avangard, that has its headquarters in the same office as Malofeev’s Marshall Capital, there was a second one, which takes us directly to the state oil giant Rosneft and also involves the Italian public company Eni.
 
OCTOBER IN  PADANIA
Dugin and  Savoini have seen each other often in the last few months. In Italy and in Russia. It is proven by some photos L’Espresso managed to get a hold of. One of these regards a meeting that took place on Via del Babuino in Rome, on last September 25. It was a chance to say hello and also to think about a visit by the Minister and Vice Prime Minister Salvini to Moscow. A trip that actually took place on October 17, 2018, on the occasion of the convention organized by the Russian Confindustria, the Italian Industrial Federation at the branch chaired by Ernesto Ferlenghi, the historic head of Eni beyond the Urals.

In order to better understand what happened, we followed Salvini’s mission. And we discovered plenty of discrepancies with respect to the official reports about those days.  Having left Rome on the morning of October 17 on an Alitalia flight, the Minster landed at 3:45 pm at Sheremetyevo airport to go to the Lotte Hotel, where at 5:00 pm a conference was being organized by Confindustria. 

Even if he was seated in the front row, Savoini stayed out of the way during the event.  Instead Claudio D’Amico put out his face, the Vice Prime Minister’s strategic foreign advisor. Everything was normal and the protocol was perfectly respected. Except for one detail. When the convention was over, after the smiling selfies were taken, the Minister said goodbye and left by a side door of the Lotte Hotel. There was no public engagement on the official agenda. Yet, according to what some of his closest collaborators said, the evening did not end there. After the press conference, the Italian Vice Prime Minister secretly met an important figure of the Kremlin:  the Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, authorized for energy affairs, a man in Putin’s tight circle. The meeting took place in Vladimir Pligin’s office, a famous Muscovite lawyer tied to Kozak, whose office was at number 43 of Sivtsev Vrazhek.

Why did Salvini, who is the most active minister on the social networks, always ready to share moments of his public and private life with his followers not want this face to face with his Russian counterpart to be known? When we asked for a comment sending the request to two of his email addresses – among which the institutional one at the Senate, Salvini preferred to not reply. What makes us even  more curious is what happened a while later that night.
 
NO DEPOSIT DIESEL
The following day we witnessed the meeting which took place in the entrance hall of the Hotel Metropol, the architectural jewel that faces the square where the Bolshoi Theater is located. Savoini went to the hotel at 9:30 am. He sat with another Italian in the majestic dining room-restaurant of the Metropol. After about half an hour, the two got up and joined four people who were waiting for them in the entrance hall. They sat at one of the tables close to the bar. We managed to recognize one person with certainty: Ylia Andreevich Yakunin, a manager very close to Pligin, the lawyer who the night before had hosted the meeting between Salvini-Kozak. There was a Russian translator at the table with an Italian lawyer called Francesco.

The group spent over an hour speaking and drinking espresso coffee. After the initial greetings. Savoini praised Salvini’s sovereignism and glorified the friendship with Putin and with Russia. He then explained his geopolitics for Italy: «The new Europe must be close to Russia. We must not depend on the decisions made by the illuminated in Bruxelles or in the USA. We want to change Europe together with our allies like Heinz-Christian Strache in Austria, Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, Mrs. Le Pen in France, Orbán in Hungary, Sverigedemokraterna in Sweden».

Then he gave the floor to the technicians, who spent the rest of the time discussing the details of the deal. Which? Always the same issue debated in July between Savoini and the managing director of Avangard: a supply of Russian fuel. This time however, they will no longer speak about the unknown Avangard. The diesel would be sold by a Russian state company «Rosneft», said the Russians. Eni would be the buyer, the Italian state company. Large quantities are discussed. The Russians propose 3 million tons of diesel in 6 months or a year. The Italian lawyer says there is no problem: he assures that Eni is able to buy even more if needed, The diesel will be sold by the Russian company with a minimum discount of 4% on the Platts price, the main costing reference for the oil sector. Upon the request of the Russians, the parties agree so that the discount is even more, considering 6%. With the promise that anything over 4% will be given back to the Russians.

«This is a guarantee, they can even take 400… whatever the hell they have to take, but it is a guarantee», says Savoini to his fellow countrymen. The operation is complicated. It will not be Eni paying Rosneft directly:  the money will pass through an unspecified European bank and a Russian company to still be chosen. Details. What is Savoini’s interest in all of this story is explained after another half hour of discussion by the Italian lawyer to his Russian counterpart: «the plan made by our “political guys” is simple. Given the four percent discount, it is 250 thousand per month for one year. This way they can support a campaign». Not only: «This is just a political matter, we want to finance the election campaign and this is positive for both sides». Thanks to this deal with the Russians, the Lega would receive at least 250 million dollars a month for one year – 3 million euro in total – and it will use this money for the European election campaign. Savoini will later explain it better saying to have spoken «yesterday with Aleksandr, and according to him I represent the total connection, on the Italian side as well as their side». Aleksandr as in Aleksandr Dugin, Putin’s favorite philosopher who Savoini surely met during those days, showed a photo published by “La Stampa”.

The meeting we witnessed at Hotel Metropol ended with a summary of the aspects still to be decided. The type of diesel, to which fuel for airplanes could be added. The place where it should be delivered, with the options of Rotterdam or Novorossisk. The money to be given back to the Russians with the ploy of the discount above 4%. The bank used by Rosneft, with the Russians suggesting the Russian Banca Intesa  and the Italians reassuring them because there is already «one of our men called Mascetti» on the bank’s board of directors. As in Andrea Mascetti, the Lega man who is seated on the board of directors of the Russian branch of Intesa.

It was October 18, 2018. At the moment in which we ended this journalistic investigation, we do not know how the deal ended, if the agreement was signed and in what terms. If what we heard then actually happened, however we are before a clamorous paradox:  a nationalist party, Salvini’s Lega, financed  by a public Russian enterprise for the next European election campaign. Therefore the most important Italian government force supported by Putin, the number one enemy of the EU. All discussed in Moscow by a man, Savoini, who had no business talking about oil and even less about financing the Lega.