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The Trump-Putin deal on the purchase of Russian diesel “is a very risky choice” and “a legitimisation for Moscow while its bombs are still falling on Ukrainian cities”, Giorgia Meloni said in Rome on Wednesday, swiftly winning Kyiv’s approval and provoking a prickly response from Russia.
The Italian prime minister, speaking in Parliament before heading to Brussels for Thursday and Friday’s European Council, warned of an “implicit weakening of the sanctions lever”, which she said runs counter to what has so far been done, including by the United States, “to push Putin to sit down at the negotiating table”.
How Kyiv and Moscow reacted to Meloni’s remarks
On the Russian president, the Italian leader added that “he is provoking Europe because he needs to divert attention from how the conflict is going and is looking for a new enemy”, while on support for Ukraine she stressed that “Italy’s position does not change”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, visiting London on Wednesday, took to X to thank Meloni “for understanding who the aggressor is and what it means to build a dignified and lasting peace”.
In an interview in the United Kingdom, the Ukrainian president said it was “painful that President Trump chooses a different side”, implicitly referring to the alleged lack of cooperation by the US Starlink satellite network in providing data on incoming Russian missiles during the latest waves of attacks on Ukraine.
The tone in Moscow was very different. Commenting on Meloni’s words, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Italian media: “It is none of her business.”
Italy urges the E3 to negotiate on everyone’s behalf
The prime minister also touched on Europe’s presence at the negotiating table, where other European countries have already stepped in. “If France, Germany and Great Britain, in the well-known E3 format, believe they can do better on their own than we could all do together, and so far that is the choice they have made, then at the very least they should do so on behalf of everyone and with an official mandate from all,” Meloni told the Senate.
“What matters to me is that Europe does not move ahead in a haphazard way, does not expose itself to those who have an interest in fuelling divisions and speaks with a single voice,” she added, calling for “the Twenty-Seven to identify a respected figure, with a mandate from all, capable of bringing Europe’s voice to the table. And if we cannot agree on a name, we are ready to consider different solutions”.
But Italy’s governing majority itself is divided over Ukraine’s future.
“What we are doing on Ukraine is exactly what is written in our programme with which we presented ourselves to Italians and were elected,” Meloni later told the lower house, addressing MPs from Futuro Nazionale, the far-right party founded by MEP Roberto Vannacci.
Her deputy prime minister and League leader, Matteo Salvini, however, said that in Italy “we cannot go on indefinitely sending billions, not as loans but as gifts” to Ukraine. He later pointed out at a press briefing in the European Parliament that other EU states, including Belgium and Spain, “are buying energy and gas from Russia”.