“We, Italians, are already experiencing international solidarity. As you may know, Italy is currently enjoying the help of Russian doctors and doctors from many other countries who have come to Italy to give us their voluntary help to defeat the epidemic, and of this, I thank everybody,” Rubino said.
Russia’s armed forces have played an active role in assisting Italy, the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe. Moscow has sent shipments of medical supplies, and Italian and Russian doctors have established a 142-bed field hospital in the city of Bergamo where patients are receiving round-the-clock treatment.
Russian and Italian military personnel have sanitized retirement homes in more than 46 settlements in Lombardy, comprising more than 3.2 million square feet of internal space.
As of Friday, 147,577 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Italy, resulting in the deaths of 18,849 people.
The annual St. Petersburg International Legal Forum was switched to an online format given the current epidemiological challenges posed by COVID-19. The forum brings together legal and health professionals to discuss the legal impact of the coronavirus disease pandemic.
The deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, and the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, all spoke at the plenary session of the forum, held on Friday.
