Over the past few days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has done everything he can to win more Italian support for his country’s defense against the Russian aggressor. In a major interview with three leading Italian newspapers on Monday, he once again campaigned for Europe’s third-largest economy: “The Italians won’t let us down” – such a quote fits the headline. In doing so, Selensky concentrates specifically on the Roman head of government personally. “We just met Giorgia Meloni in Brussels and I’m looking forward to seeing her. I know she’s coming soon.”
During the Ukrainian President’s trip abroad to London, Paris and Brussels, the Italian Prime Minister was still in the second row among the important Europeans. This is probably one of the reasons why she wants no doubts about her foreign policy reliability. She has been saying for a long time that she will travel to Kiev before the anniversary of February 24th. She has given herself enough time, now it is urgent. Accordingly, your visit is generally expected for this Tuesday.
But the leader of the largest governing party, Fratelli d’Italia, has to walk a difficult tightrope domestically. Not only are their two allies in the right-wing government, Matteo Salvini from the Lega and Silvio Berlusconi from Forza Italia, clearly more pro-Moscow, the Italian population also has a lot of sympathy for Russia and reservations about Ukraine.
A crate of vodka would be ready for Berlusconi
Zelensky knows all this and uses his knowledge in a strikingly direct manner. “Giorgia is a strong woman,” he says, “who can hold the government together.” And Berlusconi? “He likes vodka, we have excellent quality in Ukraine, I can send him a box if that draws him to our side”: Zelensky is referring to previous gifts given to the Italian by Kremlin leader Putin.
That’s roughly how Meloni sees it. Salvini and Berlusconi can talk, she makes the decisions. She has just launched a decree that would allow the Italian government to supply arms to Ukraine until at least the end of 2023 without having to seek parliamentary approval for each individual measure. This continues the policy to which her predecessor Draghi committed the country.
Even under Draghi, however, the government had the principle of not talking publicly about arms deliveries. Other European countries initially took the same line, but have long since softened their position. In Italy, the principle of secrecy still applies. However, experts believe that Italy has so far supplied Ukraine with arms worth between 300 and 500 million euros, including heavy artillery pieces, stingers-Missiles and lightly armored troop carriers. Most of it, however, probably under Draghi.
Recently, however, there has been increased criticism that Italy is providing humanitarian aid but hardly any weapons – also because the Italian military is not in the best condition. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani – from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, by the way – said in a recent interview that Rome’s five aid packages for Kiev had been worth around one billion euros. And a few days ago he went one better and officially announced that Italy would use the very effective anti-aircraft system developed jointly with France Sample/T want to make available, but gave no timetable. Italy has five of these units in use.
Prime Minister Meloni will talk about it in Kiev, but she is already thinking ahead: she wants to be part of the race to rebuild after the war. There is no doubt that the USA will play the most important role in this. But the economically stronger France is a competitor with which the Italians want to compete. The dinner organized by Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Ukrainian President was seen as a humiliation in Italy. With an international conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine, hosted by Italy, Meloni could gain diplomatic ground.