Italian authorities are investigating whether Russia or other foreign actors had a role in the violent cost-of-living protests that swept Milan and other European cities over the weekend, as concerns rise across the EU over Moscow’s escalating hybrid warfare.
Italy’s government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has reportedly requested a briefing over what role – if any – foreign provocateurs may have played, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, Oct. 21, citing people familiar with the matter.
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The scale of the violence and the apparent coordination of some attacks led officials to question whether the unrest was entirely spontaneous.
“The events in Milan and elsewhere in Italy are fundamentally different from those seen in other periods,” Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in Rome on Tuesday.
“They are the product of what I call ‘hybrid warfare,’ which someone is bringing into our countries with unconventional tools that are called TikTok, social media and YouTube, without the West realizing or reacting,” he continued, according to Bloomberg.
Meloni’s spokesperson had declined the request to comment.
Weekend unrest in Milan
According to a report from The New York Times on Monday, Oct. 19, thousands of people were brought to the streets by rising food and fuel prices, combined with low wages, high taxes and public spending cuts.
Milan reportedly saw the largest turnout, with about 2,000 demonstrators according to the city’s police, while protests also took place in Bologna, Turin, Brescia and Bergamo.
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The initial call to protest came from an anonymous social media account created earlier in October, which urged nationwide anti-government demonstrations to “bring the birth of a new Italy and a new Europe.”
While most participants in Milan marched peacefully, masked groups looted shops, set fires and threw objects at police, who responded with water cannons and tear gas.
War just meters from the Milan cathedral, Duomo. The symbol of Christianity in Italy and Europe, surrounded by smoke bombs, firecrackers and police vans under attack. This is not a protest. This is urban guerrilla warfare in the heart of our history and faith. And many of those… pic.twitter.com/vqD4612ReR
— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) October 18, 2026
NYT reported that police arrested 32 people, most of them minors, and reported 14 officers injured. A local business association put the damage at more than €1 million (roughly $1.1 million).
“Demonstrating is a right, devastating our cities is not,” Meloni said in a statement on X.
The unrest mirrored similar movements elsewhere in Europe, including student-led riots in France, the country’s worst in decades.
In southern Italy, farmers and truckers have blockaded ports and highways over soaring fuel prices linked to the war in Iran.
Troops deployed to Milan
Crosetto also said that children as young as 11 or 12 who took part appeared to have undergone a form of “counter-education.” He, however, offered no further details on what that would entail.
With more demonstrations expected this weekend, the government announced the deployment of 500 military personnel in Milan until the end of the year.
According to Bloomberg, opposition critics accused Meloni’s conservative coalition of exploiting the unrest ahead of the next year’s elections while neglecting grievances behind it.
Meloni’s firm line on Moscow
Italy’s scrutiny of the protests comes as Meloni has positioned her government among Kyiv’s prominent backers in Europe, which could – in Kremlin’s view – make it a legitimate target for a hybrid operation.
“If Ukraine stopped defending itself tomorrow, as many wish and openly call for, we would not achieve peace,” Meloni said on Oct. 14, speaking ahead of the EU summit in Brussels.
“Instead, we would be discussing the occupation of a European country and the return of Soviet-style imperialism, which Europe endured for half a century,” she continued.
Her support for Kyiv, she said, alongside pressure on Moscow, remained the pillars of Italy’s foreign policy; even at the cost of voter support.
Russia’s escalating hybrid campaign
Italy’s foreign actors probe comes as EU governments report a sharp rise in Russian hybrid operations, ranging from drone incursions into NATO airspace to sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament on Sept. 17 that intelligence assessments showed Moscow planned “hybrid” drone and missile strikes on countries supporting Ukraine, which it could later portray as accidents.
Around the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia could attack another European country directly as Moscow seeks to fracture Western unity and weaken support for Ukraine.
On Oct. 17, Tusk reiterated his earlier warning that Russia may escalate its hybrid warfare before Christmas, pointing to possible attacks on railway lines and energy transit conduits supplying Ukraine.
Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said on Oct. 7 that Russia had begun carrying out sabotage against Danish defense firms supplying Ukraine, often through untrained proxies recruited via Telegram.
Days later, the Financial Times reported that European intelligence agencies had warned arms executives of Russian assassination plots, with Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) advising them to hire private bodyguards.
Meanwhile, Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in hybrid operations or sabotage in Europe.