Not a video message, but a text that Amadeus will read to Sanremo viewers: this is the compromise reached between Rai and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, after the controversy raised in the country over the news of his video appearance during the festival finale of the Italian song.
Stefano Coletta, Prime Time Entertainment Director of Rai, explained in the Festival presentation conference: “Zelensky? We are in contact with the Ukrainian ambassador. The President will not send a video, but a text. With regard to preventive control, I think it is complicated to be able to censure a President. Control is related to the airing of any television program, to view everything that is aired before airing. I smile at the idea of censorship…”.
Amadeus added: “It will be translated directly by the Ukrainian embassy. I’ll read it exactly as it arrives.”
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, ironically comments on the story: “Zelensky will not make a video message at the Sanremo Festival, but will send the text. Well I don’t know, he might as well have won this contest with a rap.”
In Russia the Sanremo Festival is well known, in the times of the Soviet Union it was particularly popular.
