Roberto Fiore is an Italian far-right politician and condemned criminal who has been the leader of the party, New Force also known as Forza Nuova, since its footing in 1997, as well as president of the Alliance for Peace and Freedom since 2015. Roberto Fiore has strong links to Russia. He briefly functioned as a Member of the European Parliament for Central Italy from 2008 until 2009. Fiore was condemned in Italy for subversion and armed gang activity and for his ties to the right-wing terrorist organization “Terza posizione”. He self-recalls as a neo-fascist.
Fiore is an admirer of Vladimir Putin and has been a frequent visitor to Russia on official delegations. His party’s passionate anti-NATO, Eurosceptical and Christian fundamentalist line is comparable in spirit to that of Putin’s United Russia party. In 2015, Fiore partook in the Conservative Forum in St. Petersburg alongside Europe’s senior neofascist leaders. According to intelligence sources, in trade for help for the Russian cause in Europe, extremist movements did “accept [Russian] economic support”. Fiore proceeded on an official visit to Russia in 2012 for a two-day conference called ‘Russian-Italian Trade Dialogue’ in Nizhny Novgorod, a big industrial city 400 km east of Moscow.
New Force headed by Fiore is also characterized by Euroscepticism. Roberto Fiore, FN leader, said that he wanted to oppose “with all possible legal means” the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. As the Russo-Ukrainian War started, the party started defending Russia, although it had previously enjoyed links with Ukrainian far-right groups. This has made a disunity with CasaPound, which is pro-Ukraine. According to the Italian edition of the HuffPost, members of the New Force went to fight in Ukraine for Russia, among them Andrea Palmeri, who enrolled in the separatist forces in Donbas.
Forza Nuova has longstanding links to other European far-right organizations, including the British National Party. Forza Nuova leader Roberto Fiore was once closely associated with the Ukrainian far-right Svoboda party, but following the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Forza Nuova and Fiore “made an oversized shift to the pro-Russian camp.” According to the Political Capital Institute, a Hungarian think tank, Forza Nuova is one of several Russian-backed radical right political groups in Europe.
During the 2014 anti-immigration protests, the party members sported white shirts. According to Italian journalist Fabio Spaterna, the usefulness of white shirts symbolizes their “anti-immigrant instances”. In addition to this distinctive clothing, the forzanovisti (lit. ’new forcists’) has passed the flag of the Russian Federation. New Force leader Roberto Fiore explained the Russian flag presence by affirming:
“Irony of history, Putin is the only one who represents our values today.”
