When the embattled Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, announced his resignation earlier this month, it prompted a former leader of Italy’s Five Star party, Luigi Di Maio, to say “the Russians are right now celebrating having made another western government fall.” That may have seemed like hyperbole, but a new report in La Stampa lends support to the claim. According to the Italian newspaper, the far-right Northern League Party led by a former Italian deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, and more specifically the party’s ties to the Kremlin, were “behind the Italian government’s collapse.”

The newspaper reported that in secret talks held at Moscow at the end of May, a Russian embassy official, Oleg Kostyukov, ​​asked Mr. Salvini’s foreign affairs adviser, Antonio Capuano, if ​​the Northern League’s ministers would be “willing to resign from the Draghi government” a mere two months before they actually did — precipitating Mr. Draghi’s fall. La Stampa said intelligence reports viewed by its reporters corroborated the interactions between the Italian politicians and Russian officials. 

Christened Russiagate in the Italian press, the scandal was preceded by another one that amplified it. As the Times of London reported, Mr. Capuano had sought to organize a quixotic “peace mission” to Moscow for Mr. Salvini but that initiative floundered, with considerable embarrassment brought to bear on the Northern League Party after reports surfaced that the Kremlin had paid for Mr. Salvini’s plane ticket to Moscow in June. Because of EU sanctions, there are no flights between Rome and Moscow, so Mr. Salvini was set to fly from Istanbul on Aeroflot, the Guardian reported. He never went, but the reports put his pro-Moscow leanings squarely on the radar, and the increased scrutiny likely had a role in the new round of allegations that are shaking the Italian political establishment to the core.

The article in La Stampa about possible collusion between Mr. Salvini and Vladimir Putin and follow-up reports touched off a political firestorm in Italy that is unlikely to subside soon, especially as elections to find a replacement for Mr. Draghi are not on the calendar until September.

Mr. Salvini is no longer the dominant force in a right-wing alliance that includes the far right Brothers of Italy party, led by an up-and-comer, Giorgia Meloni, and the center-right Forza Italia party, led by a former premier, Silvio Berlusconi. The AP reported that opinion polls now indicate the Brothers of Italy, which has neo-fascist roots, would be the top vote-getter in September, with Ms. Meloni eager to become premier.

The Italian scandal underscores the reality of Moscow’s meddling in European governments that are sometimes mistakenly seen as impervious to the Kremlin’s maneuvering simply because they are European. The Times of London reported that the leader of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, reacted to the reports by saying: “The election campaign is beginning in the worst possible way. We want to know whether it was Putin who brought down the Draghi government. If that was the case it would be of the utmost gravity.”

Mr. Draghi has been a vocal and staunch supporter of Ukraine and President Zelensky since the Russian invasion on February 24. Mr. Salvini, by contrast, was once pictured wearing a Putin T-shirt in Moscow’s Red Square and has said of his party, “We’re pro-European and pro-Atlantic, but that doesn’t mean not wanting good relations with Putin.”

In sharp contrast with the 49-year-old Mr. Salvini, Ms. Meloni — a 45-year-old former journalist — remarked to the Italian news agency Ansa that the idea of continuing Mr. Draghi’s support for Ukraine, should she become prime minister, has been “one of the easiest decisions of my life.”