Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto accused a “hybrid war” of being the cause of riots in Milan and other cities during the weekend.
© Lusa
20/10/2026
by
Lusa
O italian Defense Minister today considered that the riots caused by young people in Milan and other cities of Italy during the weekend are the result of a “hybrid war” that is being waged against the West.
“ Events in Milan and elsewhere in Italy are fundamentally different from those observed in other times, they are the product of what I call ‘hybrid war’, a form of conflict that is being fought against our nations through unconventional tools such as TikTok, social networks and YouTube,” said Guido Crosetto.
According to the minister, who was speaking at a forum on Defence Acquisitions in Rome, “the West has not yet realized this, nor taken any significant steps in response”.
Crosetto insisted that “if three out of ten young people participated in these demonstrations” and “if six out of ten agree with these feelings, it is because they were subjected to a ‘counter-education’ from somewhere, not from their families or from schools”.
“ This instilled values, ambitions, a vision of the world and points of reference that are in direct conflict with the society in which we live and with our democratic rules,” he said, not only referring to so-called ‘maranza’ (juvenile gangs) or adolescents of the second generation of Magrebine origin, but to all participants in the riots, ‘mostly Italians’.
A bit like what happened in Paris, in the margins of demonstrations against the cost of living and disinvestment in education, groups of young people, mostly smaller and hooded, caused chaos and destruction during the weekend, pillaging and destroying commercial establishments in the centre of cities such as Milan, Turin and Bologna (north of Italy).
According to trade associations, the wave of looting and destruction has caused some EUR 1 billion of damage.
Today, the right-wing and far-right government led by Giorgia Meloni is meeting at the Council of Ministers in Rome to adopt a package of measures against this type of youth violence in the margins of demonstrations, and must decide, among other things, to send 500 military personnel to ensure security in central Milan, the economic capital of the country.
Addressing today one of the demands of young students who manifest themselves peacefully, of spending less on defense and more on education, Minister Crosetto said that “no one can dispute that it is better a hospital than a missile launcher” and commented that “they are concepts that should not even be mixed, because it would be like saying that it is better to eat than to have a home”, but warned that the world is living today “in an age of irrationality”.
According to prosecutors in the Lombardy region, disturbances in Milan during the weekend revealed destructive acts of rare violence, which were essentially committed by young adults.
The detainees on Saturday because of the riots in central Milan, during which dumpsters, paving stones and other objects were thrown against security forces, demonstrated “an absolute ease in improvising destructive acts of rare violence”, in addition to a “significant criminal capacity” and a total absence of “self-control”, commented on Monday the prosecutor.
Of the approximately 300 detainees, about 80% were underage.