Shortly after reputed Western media dramatically misquoted an Italian police statement on a huge missile seized from a neo-Nazi cell fighting for Kiev in eastern Ukraine, the original has been altered to become markedly vague.

Italian state police made big headlines across Europe when it reported of raids and arrests on a neo-Nazi underground organization taking place all over the country. An air-to-air missile was seized from an ultra-right group that also managed to stockpile Nazi memorabilia and dozens of military-issue firearms. Police said the group has fought on the side of the Ukrainian government forces in the breakaway eastern region of Donbass.

A host of Western media, such as Reuters, CNN, the Guardian, BBC and CBS, got the latter part profoundly wrong and reported that the busted gang was fighting alongside the Donbass rebels. RT reported on the embarrassing gaffe on Monday evening, but a day later, only BBC and Reuters seem to have taken notice and altered their stories. When contacted by RT over its misquotation, Reuters responded with a thank you “for bringing it to our attention” and corrected the story. The corrected paragraph now states that “a police official declined to say who they [the neo-Nazi group] had been fighting for.”

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In a puzzling Tuesday development, the Italian police stepped in to alter the original statement. The widely misquoted Monday report initially spoke of “some people linked to political movements of the ultra-right that had fought in the Ukrainian region of Donbass against the separatists.”

The edited version only mentions “some Italian fighters with extreme ideologies responsible for having previously taken part in the armed conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine.”

The Italian police have since told RT there had been an “error” in the initial press release and claimed that police had not said anything about “which side” the fighters were affiliated with. However, not only the original press release, but also the press conference about the raid clearly referred to the neo-Nazi group’s alliance; the head of the Turin Counterterrorism Service, Luigi Spina, said it “had helped Ukrainian nationalist groups in the fight against pro-Russian Donbass groups,” as quoted by the Il Giornale journalist Roberto Vivaldelli.

No public explanation has been provided for the editing of the report, but one can’t help but notice how it made the text much less specific. For an outside observer not familiar with the subject, it may not be obvious that neo-Nazis have not been associated with the Ukrainian rebels, and that on the other hand, some Kiev-backed volunteer groups fighting in Donbass have been using Nazi Germany-inspired insignia and slogans for years.

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Oddly enough, the edited police statement bears a striking resemblance to the wording that some local newspapers used to make the news less precise, also describing the neo-Nazis as having “taken part” in the Ukrainian conflict.

The operation that uncovered the French-made missile was led by Turin anti-terrorism police force DIGOS. It involved extensive searches of private properties and arrests in various locations in Italy. Police said they also found nine assault rifles, a submachine gun, seven pistols, three shotguns and 20 bayonets, along with almost a thousand rounds of ammunition.

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