We don’t just follow stories, we follow up. On April 2, Coda Story’s Natalia Antelava took a look inside the influence operation behind Russia’s recent coronavirus aid package to Italy. The piece was published in collaboration with La Stampa newspaper, where journalist Jacopo Iacoboni had been covering the issue. 

That evening, Iacoboni received an extraordinary threat from Russian Ministry of Defense spokesperson General Igor Konashenkov, who wrote a Facebook post accusing La Stampa and Iacoboni of “fueling Russian cold war fake news” and signed off his statement with a phrase in Latin: Qui fodit foveam, incidet in eam – “he who digs the pit falls into it.” 

Iacoboni was at home in Italy’s northern city of Turin when he read the Facebook post. “I started to realize how aggressive and threatening that statement was,” he said.

Italy’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to Konashenkov’s outburst with a statement of their own. After thanking Russia for their help, they countered: “In being grateful for this concrete demonstration of support, one cannot, at the same time, not blame the inappropriate tone of certain expressions used by the spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Defense towards some articles of the Italian press.”