Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced that he summoned the Russian envoy following a verbal attack against President Sergio Mattarella.

Axar.az reports "I strongly condemn yet another verbal attack on President Mattarella," Tajani wrote on X. "He is a man of peace and a symbol of national and European unity. That is why I have decided to summon the Russian Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry."

Diplomatic tensions between Rome and Moscow, started last month when Italian President Sergio Mattarella compared Russia’s "special military operation" in Ukraine to Nazi Germany, escalated further after a sharp response from Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

Zakharova rejected Mattarella's claim that "Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons" as a "lie" and insisted that it “is not true and must be accounted for."