A few seats remained vacant in the Palazzo Montecitorio, the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament. In the upper rows and in the stands, some deputies and senators from the Cinque Stelle and the right-wing populist Lega preferred not to honor the guest speaker from Kyiv with their presence. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was admitted to a “marketing operation without argument” that could “lead to the third world war”, according to the reasoning.
Some of those who think this way are self-confessed pacifists, others are “neither with Ukraine nor with Russia” theorists, and still others are among the “Putiniani,” as the Italians call unconverted supporters of Vladimir Putin. According to these circles, if Zelensky is allowed to speak, Putin must also be allowed to speak. All these votes had given much to talk about in the past few days.
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But fears that Italy might look bad evaporated in the long standing ovation that the Ukrainian president received on Tuesday. Zelensky described the situation in his country to parliament in dramatic words in the video link. The fact that he specifically named the number of children killed in the war, 117 at the time of his speech, was meant as an urgent appeal to Italians: “I know what family and children mean to you.” He also reminded that among the approximately 70,000 Ukrainian refugees who have now reached Italy, 25,000 are children.
So that the Italians can grasp the dimension of the suffering at the front, Zelenskij drew a comparison between two port cities of roughly the same size, one Italian and one Ukrainian: “Imagine your Genoa totally destroyed: That’s Mariupol today. Imagine if it were Mariupol Genoa.”
“The resistance in Mariupol, Kharkiv and Odessa is heroic,” says Draghi
Before the speech, Italian media had wondered whether Zelensky would use historical references, as in his speeches to parliamentarians from other countries. Perhaps he would compare the Ukrainian resistance to the “Resistenza,” the partisan resistance struggle against fascists and Nazis in World War II. But he refrained from doing so, the allusion might have split Parliament. Instead, he said that Italy is a place of longing and vacation for many Russian oligarchs. “You can no longer take in these powerful people with their real estate, their yachts and their accounts.” More sanctions against Russia are needed.
Then Prime Minister Mario Draghi turned to Zelenskiy and thanked him for the “extraordinary testimony” that he and the Ukrainian people gave to the world. “The arrogance of the Russian government clashes with the dignity of this people.” Putin’s cruelty is reflected in the Ukrainian cities, “the resistance in Mariupol, Kharkiv and Odessa is heroic.” Ukraine is not only defending itself today. “It is defending our peace, our freedom, our security. Italy is deeply grateful to you for this,” said Draghi. That is why the Italians are now opening doors and hearts for the refugees and are ready to do much more.
Then Draghi got political. Italy has already confiscated more than 800 million euros in assets from Russian oligarchs in the country. Efforts are now being made to diversify energy sources as quickly as possible so that the country will soon be less dependent on Russian gas. Central was the passage to the EU. “Italy wants,” said Draghi, “that Ukraine becomes part of the European Union.” It has often been said that the integration process takes a long time and requires many reforms to make it work. “Yes, President Zelensky, Italy will stand by Ukraine in this process.”