A lawmaker from centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has called on the foreign ministry to summon Russia's ambassador after remarks made by the country's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in an Italian TV interview sparked international outrage including his claim that mass killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were "fake".
"Waiting for the foreign ministry to convene a meeting with Russia's ambassador after Lavrov yesterday evening," tweeted Italy's lower house of parliament member Filippo Sensi.
In the interview with Italy's private Rete 4 news channel on Sunday, Lavrov denied that Russian forces had murdered hundreds of civilians in the town of Bucha outside Kiev before they withdrew from the area in late , March, calling the claim "fake".
In the Rete 4 interview, Lavrov also claimed that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's Jewishness does not negate his Nazism since Germany's wartime Nazi leader Adolf Hitler also “had Jewish blood".
Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology over Lavrov's comments. It is one of few western countries that has yet to impose sanctions on Russia over its nine-week-old invasion and has not provided military aid to Ukraine.
