ROME, May 13 (Reuters) – Italian leaders pledged full military and financial backing for Ukraine on Saturday and reiterated their support for its EU membership bid, as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Rome for the first time since the start of the war. .
Zelensky met with President Sergio Mattarella and then with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, before going to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis, who at the end of April declared that the Holy See is participating in a peace mission to put an end to the war with Russia.
Both Mattarella and Meloni reiterated Italy’s full support for Ukraine in terms of military, financial, humanitarian and reconstruction aid in the short and long term.
At a press conference after her meeting with Zelensky, Meloni condemned Russia’s “brutal and unjust aggression”, vowed Italy’s support for Ukraine for “as long as it takes” and urged Russia to withdraw immediately.
“You cannot achieve peace through surrender,” he said, echoing an earlier comment by Mattarella. “It would be a very serious precedent for all the nations of the world.”
He stressed Italy’s support for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and the “intensification” of a partnership with NATO.
Zelensky flew to Rome on an Italian government plane that was escorted by fighter jets over Italian airspace. He was scheduled to be received in Berlin on Sunday.
The meeting with the Holy Father is expected to be the most important part of Zelensky’s stay in Italy. He already met the Pope in the Vatican in 2020 and the two have had several telephone conversations since the start of the war.
At the start of the war, the Supreme Pontiff tried to take a balanced approach in the hope of being a mediator, but later began to strongly condemn Russia’s actions, comparing them to some of the worst crimes against Ukraine during the Soviet era.
Returning from a trip to Hungary on April 30, Francis made a disconcerting comment about the Vatican’s involvement in a mission to try to end the war. “There is a mission in progress, but it has not been made public yet. When it is made public, I will reveal it,” he told reporters during his flight home.
Francis met this week with Russia’s outgoing ambassador to the Vatican, Alexander Avdeyev, and the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported that the Vatican may have handed the envoy a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met the pope at the Vatican on April 27 and said he had discussed a “peace formula” proposed by Zelensky.
The proposal calls for restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities, and the restoration of Ukraine’s state borders. Zelensky has repeatedly said that the plan is not open for negotiations.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; additional reporting by Olena Harmash, Max Hunder, Gavin Jones and Giselda Vagnoni; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)
Source: Ambito
