The British newspaper, The Telegraph reported that Soros believes that Matteo Salvini’s party is funded by the Kremlin.
At a conference in northern Italy on Sunday, Soros said there were close links between The League and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.
Italian media cited Soros ‘s claim: “I don’t know if Putin finances the party, but this is a question that Italian public opinion has the right to know.”
Matteo Salvini, League leader and deputy prime minister, said his party has never received money from Moscow. “I have never received a lira, a euro or a rouble from Russia.”
Salvini has visited to Moscow several times. “I consider Putin one of the best statesmen (in the world) and I consider it shameful that a speculator without scruples like Soros was invited to talk in Italy,” Salvini told Italian state media ANSA.
Salvini has repeatedly called for sanctions against Russia to be lifted, arguing that sanctions have done huge damage to Italy’s exports.
League party deputy Claudio Borghi Aquilini responded to Soros’s smears: “Soros worried by the Italian government? So it means we are going in the right direction.”
“We understand that those who have been speculating for years off of the skin of immigrants, financing NGOs and smugglers to invade Italy, are now aware that the good times are over and they will take any pretext to attack,” he added.
League leader Salvini on Monday rejected Soros’s suggestion his party might be funded by Vladimir Putin.
Salvini said on RTL radio he had a high opinion of the Russian president “free of charge” and dismissed the billionaire philanthropist and liberal open-society advocate as a “speculator who 20 years ago caused one of the biggest Italian economic disasters,” when the lira was forced out of the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM) along with the pound.
“I have already sued people who said Russia was paying me,” said deputy premier and Interior Minister Salvini, adding that “I’ve never had a lira from Russia, or a matrioska, or a fur hat.”
He said he had “a relationship of esteem” with Putin. “I believe he has done a lot for his people and with interventions against Islamist terrorism like the intervention in Syria: and I say that gratis, because I think so.
“I think it is better to have a relationship of exchange with Russia…the Italian economy would only gain from good relations with Russia. The enemy right now is Islamist terrorism, not Russia’s expansionism”.