Extraordinary: Russian MOD just put out a threatening statement against @LaStampa journalist @jacopo_iacoboni . Jacopo and I just worked together on the story below. He pissed Russian officials off so much that MOD now tells him 'Who digs the grave, crashes into it". https://twitter.com/CodaStory/status/1245768521910333440

Here is the full statement on the Russian MOD's official facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mod.mil.rus/photos/a.1492313031011448/2608708402705233/?type=3&theater

The thing that Russians are particularly furious about is that on March 24th @jacopo_iacoboni reported that 80% of aid Kremlin sent to italy was "useless". Russian sent: 15 massive military planes carrying 122 officers from one of the country's most secretive units

Russians brought equipment to decontaminate and have been disinfecting areas in #covid19 stricken Bergamo. but our reporting shows that Italians have excellent NBC (nuclear, bio, chemical) capabilities themselves. Why invite the Russians?

with memories of #Salisbury still fresh, a site of russian NBC troops in the EU rang alarm bells for many. Chemical weapons experts I spoke to say Russia's NBC unit is believed to overlap with military intelligence (GRU)

sources inside russian military called it "intelligence" operation and @jacopo_iacoboni gov + italian military sources stand by their "80%' assessment. our reporting explains why https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/soft-power/russia-coronavirus-aid-italy/

Russians have criticized use of anonymous sources. I actually agree - I don't like using anonymous quotes.But in the crisi striken,divided, vulnerable Italy a lot of people do not feel safe to go the record.

This is why we spoke to many people, on and off the record, cross checking their points of view and pieced together a picture that goes against Russia's narrative of their presence in Italy. Now Russian MOD is issuing statements against Italian media.

It would be interesting to hear what @NATO has to say about all of it. We tried hard, but failed, to get a comment from Brussels. As one diplomat put it "significance of what's happening in Italy is lost in the panic over #COVID2019 crisis"