On March 14, one of the glass rooms of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow was the scene of the first congress of the International Movement of Russophiles. An event that was intended to be the meeting point for friends –“the true patriots”– that Russia has abroad. A forum publicized with great fanfare by the Kremlin for those citizens from all over the world who “reject the West’s anti-Russian strategy” and which ended up bringing together, among others, followers of conspiracy theorists and controversial activists.
One of the best-known faces was that of the actor Steven Seagalwho maintains such a close friendship with the Russian president, Vladimir Putinthat this not only granted him Russian citizenship in 2016but this February he was awarded -law decree- with the Order of Friendship for his “great contribution” to “cultural and humanitarian” cooperation. Dressed in black and with a serious face, Seagal took the stage during the act and said he was “100% Russophile and 1,000,000% Russian“, according to various local media.
The presence of the Italian princess Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca It didn’t go unnoticed either. The red-haired, 70-year-old Italian aristocrat is known for being the first to translate JRR Tolkien’s work into Italian and for her two-decade-long fight to recover from the hands of the mafia and Opus Dei the palace his family owned in Bagheria. “Russophobia was created for new colonization formulas,” Alliata said during his speech, according to the newspaper. Guardian.
American actor Steven Seagal attends the congress of the International Russophile Movement in Moscow.
Reuters
Also, when asked how he ended up in Moscow, he said he was visiting the Russian royal family. “I’m a cousin of Romanovs. I know them very well, I came to the wedding… So it’s a tsarist connection“, he assured. According to statements collected by the British newspaper, Alliata also affirms that he had attended the event to “explain how things are going” and that “it had nothing to do with his personal sympathies” because he finds that “Putin is nicer than Biden”but she is “a great friend of Obama’s sister”.
In the inaugural act of the International Movement of Russophiles also participated Pierre deGaulle, grandson of the general who led the French resistance against Nazi Germany in World War II and who has led numerous controversies with his pro-Russian statements. In February, for example, he pointed to the United States, NATO and the European Union as responsible for the war. “Westerners, unfortunately, have left Zelensky, oligarchs and neo-Nazi military groups at ease,” he told le parisien.
Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca, the Italian princess friend of Vladimir Putin.
The event was also attended by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov,or the head of the Bulgarian National Movement of Russophiles, Nikolai Malinov. “We’re not just seeing neo-Nazism, we’re seeing direct Nazism, spanning more and more European countries,” Lavrov said. “We see history being destroyed before our eyessacred monuments are destroyed,” he added.
Putin, who did not attend the event, was convinced that the movement “will lead to promising joint projects and initiatives aimed at strengthening friendship, trust and mutual understanding.”
[El Tribunal de La Haya emite una orden de arresto contra Putin por crímenes de guerra]
“We greatly appreciate your strong determination to combat the russophobic campaigntheir desire to develop dialogue and beneficial humanitarian cooperation,” he said in a telegram published by the Kremlin.
