# Salvini Promised Italian Companies Still in Russia His Protection, and Moscow's Ambassador Was Delighted to Hear It > Matteo Salvini met a delegation of Italian entrepreneurs still operating in Russia in Milan and pledged the government's maximum effort to protect their businesses and jobs. Russia's ambassador called it a return to realism, handing the Kremlin a talking point Salvini's own coalition partners did not ask for. - Source: Italian Insider - Canonical URL: https://italianinsider.net/en/article/salvini-italian-companies-russia-protection - Author: Marco Ferretti - Section: Politics - Other edition: https://italianinsider.net/article/salvini-italian-companies-russia-protection - Published: 2026-09-16T11:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-16T11:00:00.000Z - Tags: Matteo Salvini, Russia, Sanctions, Italian politics --- Matteo Salvini met a delegation of Italian entrepreneurs still doing business in Russia in Milan this week and told them the government would make its maximum effort to protect their companies and the jobs attached to them. It was a domestic pledge to a specific group of business owners, but it did not stay domestic for long. Russia's ambassador to Italy, Alexey Paramonov, welcomed the meeting within hours, calling it the beginning of a return of the Italian establishment to realism, pragmatism and common sense. Paramonov used the moment to make the broader case Moscow has been making since sanctions began, that Italian exporters have lost markets they cannot easily replace, that bilateral trade has fallen by nearly a tenth of its former volume, and that energy cooperation between the two countries has almost entirely stopped, describing the sanctions regime itself as a form of hybrid war against Russia. Salvini's own framing was more careful than the ambassador's. He said Italy has tried to stay more cautious than other European countries in how it approaches Russia, stopped short of calling for sanctions to be lifted immediately, and said he opposed cutting ties with Russia outright, favoring instead a resumption of commercial, sporting, academic and cultural relations once the war in Ukraine ends. That is a meaningfully narrower position than the one Paramonov attributed to him, a difference in emphasis the Russian embassy was not inclined to preserve. The gap between what Salvini said and how Moscow chose to characterize it is precisely what has made the meeting controversial in Rome. A deputy prime minister meeting business owners to discuss protecting Italian jobs is a normal piece of constituency politics. A Russian ambassador using that same meeting to argue European sanctions policy is failing is a propaganda opening, and it is one Salvini's coalition partners did not ask for and now have to answer for regardless of how carefully he phrased his own remarks. What happens next matters more than the meeting itself. If Salvini's position stays limited to protecting existing Italian businesses and jobs, it is a defensible economic argument that other EU governments have made in less public settings. If Moscow's reading of it as evidence of Italian fatigue with the sanctions consensus gains any traction inside the coalition, a routine meeting with entrepreneurs becomes the opening argument in a much larger fight over where Italy actually stands. --- Originally published by Italian Insider. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://italianinsider.net/en/article/salvini-italian-companies-russia-protection.