SOLDIER OF MISFORTUNE: Luckless Teen Probed For Fighting In Ukraine
A teenager from Italy has been the first to be placed under investigation, after enlisting to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers against Russia.
Far-right group CasaPound sympathiser Kevin Chiappalone, 19, from Genoa, faces up to seven years in jail if found guilty.
It is reported that the teen is still in Ukraine fighting beside the anti-Russian forces.
Anti-mafia and anti-terrorism prosecutor Marco Zocco, accused Chiappalone of being a mercenary as reported by Italian media on Wednesday, 10th August.
According to Italian media, the 19-year-old man joined the Ukrainian International Brigade after arriving by plane at the Polish border in May, 2022.
Then after the training phase, he headed towards heavy fighting in the Donbass Region.
Italian security police – the General Investigations and Special Operations Division – began probing the teen when he told news magazine Panorama that he wanted to fight for Ukraine.
He said he got the idea after he heard Russian President Vladimir Putin say he planned to “de-Nazify” the country.
Social media posts of Chiappalone show him posing for photos with a squad of Ukrainian fighters.
In one he is sitting at the front of a group holding an assault rifle under a Ukrainian flag.
Despite having Chiappalone as the only suspect so far, Italian investigators are searching for other mercenaries fighting in the warzone.
They are also examining illegal recruiters who could have been behind Chiappalone’s decision.
Reportedly, many Italians are believed to have gone to the war front to help Ukraine.
State security officers have questioned supporters of the Italian neo-fascist movement CasaPound in Liguria, north-west Italy.
Leading Italian news wire service ANSA reported that since 2014, Italian mercenaries were observed to be fighting alongside pro-Russian forces in the eastern and Russian-speaking breakaway Donbass region.
Some of them among which Massimiliano Cavalleri nicknamed the Spartacus to the Century from Palazzolo, Brescia, and former security officer of a shopping center in Lombardy, Gabriele Carugati nicknamed the Archangel, are still fighting beside the Russians.
