Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to two Italian nationals: public figure Ennio Bordato and anthropologist and reporter Eliseo Bertolazi. Both have worked on Russian topics for years, and their public statements closely track official Russian narratives about the war against Ukraine and a supposedly “Russophobic” West.
Bordato was born in Rovereto in 1957 and began studying the Russian language and culture after his first trip to Moscow in 1981. He published books on Russia and the Russian emigration and now heads the volunteer organization “Help Us Save the Children,” founded in 2001 to assist children from Russia and former Soviet states.
The language on the group’s website, however, mirrors Russian propaganda talking points. It says that in 2014 the Ukrainian government launched an operation against civilians in Donbas, after which Bordato’s organization began helping children living under bombardment by the “Kyiv regime.” Its listed projects include aid for children in Donbas and support for a neonatology ward in occupied Mariupol.
Since 2012, Bordato has run a blog translating articles from the Russian press, describing it as a contribution to understanding Russia “without the filter of Russophobic media.” In his own articles, he writes about Kyiv’s alleged “genocidal intentions,” repeats claims that sanctions benefited the Russian economy, and argues that the EU “lost the war and failed to prepare for peace.”
According to Analisi di difesa, Bertolazi studied Arabic and Russian, anthropology, and emergency and humanitarian intervention issues. He is linked to the “International Russophile Movement,” launched in Moscow in March 2023, and argues that “Russophobia” is spreading in Italy while anti-Russian sanctions have wrecked the country’s economy.
In 2022, Bertolazi worked in occupied territories and filmed “People Without Peace” in Donetsk and Mariupol. In his book on Ukraine, he describes the Maidan as a Western-backed coup and says the conflict in Donbas was manufactured to provoke Russia. He previously worked with the pro-Russian outlets “Voice of Russia” and Sputnik, and in November 2025 he received the Order of Friendship from Putin in Moscow.