“Italy seems inclined to support Trump in his quest to end the war quickly, even at the expense of Ukraine.”, — write: www.unian.ua
Italy seems inclined to support Trump in his quest to end the war quickly, even at the expense of Ukraine.
In public, Zelenskyi and Meloni tried not to show the existence of contradictions / photo president.gov.uaDuring a meeting in Rome at the beginning of the week, Italian Prime Minister George Maloni spent an hour and a half persuading Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to painful concessions for the sake of ending the war. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera writes about it.
The publication notes that “behind the facade of a constructive meeting and mutual trust,” as the 90-minute conversation between Maloney and Zelenskyy was officially presented, hides “another story”: a story of mutual pressure.
“On the part of our prime minister, the speech was direct, with a message that can be summed up as follows: ‘Consider the possibility that some painful concessions may have to be made,'” writes the Italian newspaper.
According to the journalists, in general, the Ukrainian-Italian negotiations “did not go quite smoothly” due to the fact that Italy supports the Americans’ rush to a peace agreement and is generally more inclined to support the Americans’ position than the Europeans’. In addition, Maloney’s team “is not without comments” regarding the corruption scandal in Ukraine.
According to the publication, referring to rumors in the ruling party of Italy, Meloni is “exerting a certain kind of moral pressure” on Zelenskyi, including on behalf of the White House. Instead, the President of Ukraine asks the Italian Prime Minister to soften Trump’s position and try to smooth over the decision, which seems to have already been made by the US President — to achieve peace as soon as possible, even at the cost of concessions from Kyiv.
Instead, Ukraine also has its own “shopping list”: what Kyiv expects from Italy and has not yet received. In this context, Rome’s more active role in transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine and joining in financing the purchase of American weapons for the needs of the Armed Forces is mentioned in particular.
The war in Ukraine: Italy’s positionAs UNIAN wrote, Italy decided not to join the NATO PURL program for the supply of American weapons to Ukraine due to ongoing peace negotiations. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani explained that it is premature at the moment, because if an agreement is reached, hostilities will cease and Ukraine will need other security guarantees than weapons.
Earlier in October, the government in Rome signaled its readiness to join the program, but Italy has now become the first country in Europe to offer to refrain from supplying during the negotiations.
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