Rovelli attacks Crosetto on Ukraine. The minister’s response: “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about”

To unleash the controversy is the intervention of the physicist Charles Rovelli at the Concertone on May 1st, in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome. In his speech, Rovelli sounded the alarm about a possible escalation of the conflict in Ukraine: “We are heading towards a war that is growing and instead of seeking solutions, countries challenge each other, invade, fan the flames of war and international tension has never been as high as it is now”. Then, the attack on the defense minister, Guido Crosetto: “Do you know that in Italy the defense minister was very close to one of the largest arms factories in the world, Leonardo, and was president of the arms manufacturers federation?”, he asked the audience. And he explains: “The Ministry of Defense must serve to defend us from war, not to sell with instruments of death“. Finally, the appeal addressed to the public: “The world does not belong to warlords, the world is yours”.

Crosetto’s reply was not long in coming: “Rovelli doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I send him a peaceful hug and invite him to lunch to introduce me. I work for peace, I’m not a pacifist but a minister. Let him be a physicist”, he replied, intercepted by the microphones of Repubblica during his institutional visit to Baghdad.”As long as in his study of Ukraine you don’t get the wrong part to work for, because normally those who are pacifist are for the Russians. Here, however, we are all for peace in Ukraine”.

It is not the first time that the physicist has taken a stand on the conflict in Ukraine. In March, Rovelli sent a letter to Il Foglio in response to an article that appeared in Adriano Sofri’s “Piccola Posta” column. Sofri then replied with one last article, also in his address book.