the only way I can make sense of this (and I'm probably wrong maybe some Italians can help me) is that Italy is extremely divided in their politics (see Salvini[1]) ... and so the university overcompensated by trying to "stick it to Putin" while being totally ignorant about Russian literature. It's a long shot but it's all I've got. :/
it's honestly much simpler than this. Who took the decision of cancelling the course was just thinking they were doing the right and sensitive thing. This time we can be almost 100% certain that there were no politics or politicians involved. Just a dumb move by someone that clearly has no idea how things go
[1] https://twitter.com/paologerbaudo/status/1501200808976728079