Kremlin Sources Add Italian Leader to List of Allegedly Drug-Addled EU Leaders
By Eva Maitland
What happened: Kremlin sources and some U.S. conservative sites are sharing a manipulated video of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaking to reporters at the June 2025 NATO summit, falsely suggesting she was under the influence of drugs. The video appears to be part of a Russian effort to discredit NATO by reviving unfounded claims that European Union leaders are drug addicts.
A closer look: After the NATO summit in late June, which resulted in NATO members agreeing to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), pro-Kremlin sources shared a 50-second edited video of Meloni speaking to reporters.
You can watch the video here:
The video appears to have first been posted by Russian state news outlet RT (NewsGuard Trust Score: 20/100), which stated on X: “Is Giorgia Meloni okay? Did she party too hard with Zelensky in The Hague?” Pro-Kremlin media has repeatedly accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of being a drug addict. (See related Reality Check article here.)
Italy.news-pravda.com, a site in the pro-Kremlin Pravda network (Trust Score: 7.5/100), a Moscow-based influence network of more than 150 websites, published 30 articles amplifying the footage and the drug use claims in less than 24 hours. One article was titled, “In Europe, they are already openly talking about the drug addiction of their leaders.”
U.S. conservative site WLTReport.com (Trust Score: 0/100) published the video in an article titled “‘COKED OUT’? Italian PM Giorgia Meloni Appears ‘High as a Kite.’”
Actually: There is no evidence that Meloni, who is known for making exaggerated facial expressions, used drugs at the summit.
The video edited authentic footage of Meloni speaking at the press conference, splicing together moments when she touched or twitched her nose, grimaced, blinked, or made other facial expressions.
EU leaders have been repeatedly targeted in recent months with claims of illegal drug use.
In May 2025, pro-Kremlin sources falsely claimed that France’s President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer were caught with a bag of cocaine in a meeting on a train on the way to Kyiv. (See related Reality Check article here.)
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