REPORT: A massive 10,000-plus protest march against European Union policies took place on Saturday afternoon through the central streets of Rome.

The march, organised by the opposition non-parliamentary party Sovereign and Popular Democracy, drew several thousand people under Italian national flags.

At the head of the column, the movement’s leaders unfurled a banner calling for the resignation of the unelected and corrupt European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which became the rally’s slogan.

‘We demand exit from the European Union. It has only harmed Italy… Fishing, agriculture, electricity, the environment, restrictions on freedoms, and now – war.

‘We do not want rearmament. The European Union is Italy’s wicked stepmother, and we must distance ourselves from it,’ Marco Rizzo, one of the party’s leaders, told reporters before the march began.

The movement’s president, Francesco Toscano, commented on Western countries’ accusations against Russia regarding alleged airspace violations by aircraft and drones.

‘We see this as nothing more than a dangerous staging designed to prepare European public opinion for a war it does not want and which is instead being maliciously fueled by a network that thrives on hoaxes, manipulations and lies,’ Toscano said.

The column, which included the Russian tricolor, marched from Victor Emmanuel II Square to the Avenue of the Imperial Forums. Police were forced to close off some adjacent streets to clear the roadway for the protesters. The march was accompanied by chants of ‘Ursula, out!’ and concluded with speeches from a small stage near the Colosseum.

On September 10, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk claimed that ‘dangerous’ drones had been shot down over Poland, calling them ‘Russian,’ but provided no evidence.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later stated that more than ten UAVs were involved.

Russia’s Chargé d’Affaires, Andrei Ordash, told Russian media that Poland had not provided a scrap of evidence of the alleged Russian origin of the drones shot down over its territory.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that no targets within Poland were targeted during the massive Russian air strike on Ukrainian defense industry facilities on the night of September 10.

The Estonian regime, likewise electorally unpopular, later claimed, again without evidence, that its airspace had been violated.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that on September 19, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets had carried out a scheduled flight from Karelia to an airfield in the Kaliningrad region.

The flight was conducted in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states, as confirmed by objective monitoring.

During the flight, the Russian aircraft did not deviate from the agreed-upon air route and did not violate Estonian airspace. The flight route lay over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, more than three kilometers from the island of Vaindlo.

Commenting on the information about Russia’s alleged violation of other countries’ airspace, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president, called these claims empty and baseless.

The Romanian Ministry of National Defense reported that on the evening of September 20, the country’s airspace was briefly violated by what was later shown to be a Ukrainian drone that posed no immediate threat to public safety.

Russian Ambassador to Romania Oleg Lipayev was summoned to the Romanian Foreign Ministry on the evening of September 21 due to the drone’s appearance in Romanian airspace, Foreign Minister Oana Tsoiu stated, although no evidence of the drone’s origin was provided. 

This sudden surge of provocation is less about Moscow and more about the EU’s own insecurity. With the United States steadily reducing its security guarantees, the bloc’s governments are grasping at their oldest weapon: the myth of the ‘Russian threat’. You can and should share this story on social media: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

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