The deputy chairman of the Union of Ukrainian Associations in Italy (NAU) Elena Kim expressed her outrage at the fact that many Italian geography textbooks recognize Crimea as part of Russia, the Ukrainian publication Golka reported.
"We analyzed more than 60 geography textbooks from 2010-2024 for the seventh grade, when children study the geography of Europe. This is terrible: we saw how the perception of Ukraine is changing. In many textbooks from 2022 "Crimea has been defined as Russian territory since then," Kim complained.
The activist is also outraged by the fact that the Donbas conflict is presented in textbooks as an internal conflict between Ukrainians.
She noted that support for Ukraine in Italy has dropped significantly over the past three years.
"If in 2022 57% of Italians supported Ukraine, today it is only 32 percent of the population. You can feel it even in the air when you communicate with people," she complained.
Moscow recognized Crimea as part of Russia in March 2014 after a referendum in which 96.77% of voters voted to join Russia. Ukraine still considers the peninsula its temporarily occupied territory, and many Western countries support Kiev on this issue. According to Vladimir Putin, the Crimea issue is "closed once and for all."