Zelenskiy’s planned appearance at Italian Song Festival draws criticism

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ROME, Jan 27 (Reuters) – A planned appearance by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at Italy’s biggest showbiz event – the Sanremo song festival – is drawing criticism from all parties in a country where public support for the Kyiv’s war effort is lukewarm at best.

Sanremo, February 7-11, is a glitzy affair that draws record TV audiences and inspired the most famous Eurovision song festival. Zelenskiy is expected to briefly participate via video link on the closing night.

“I expect songs from the Italian Song Festival, nothing else,” Deputy Prime Minister and right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini told La7 television on Thursday.

“If Zelenskiy has time…to tune in to the Sanremo festival, that’s his choice,” he continued, adding that he wasn’t sure “how appropriate” it was to mix up the entertainment with discussions of war and death.

Zelenskiy, a former comedian and actor, also appeared via video message at this month’s Hollywood Golden Globes Awards. He used the platform to express his confidence in winning the war with Russia and thank “the free people of the free world” for their support.

Other Italian politicians, mostly from the far left and the former anti-establishment Five Star Movement, but also from the centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD), echoed Salvini’s apprehensions.

“Zelenskiy in San Remo? No,” PD leadership candidate Gianni Cuperlo wrote on Facebook, insisting that if state television RAI wanted to broadcast a message from the Ukrainian leader, it should not “confuse” it with the festival of the song.

Meanwhile, an online petition against Zelenksiy’s invitation, which partly blames the war on NATO and Kyiv’s “brutal crackdown” on Russian speakers, had attracted around 33,000 signatories by Friday morning.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been a strong supporter of Ukraine, and his government is close to finalizing a deal with France to supply Kyiv with the SAMP/T air defense system.

But the issue has been a source of friction within his right-wing coalition, as it angers Salvini and former Conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s longstanding ties to Moscow.

Polls suggest sending arms to Ukraine is dividing voters, with 52% of Italians opposed to the decision against 39.9% in favor, in a Euromedia poll for RAI published on Wednesday.

The same poll showed that 38.2% of Italians want to end the war with a ceasefire agreement with Russia, negotiated “behind the backs of the Ukrainians”, and around 25% would reduce arms deliveries in Kyiv to pressure Zelenskiy to surrender.

(Reporting by Alvise Armellini, editing by Gavin Jones and Frank Jack Daniel)

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