2023-07-01 22:28:07
by Lorenzo Cremonesi
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, the special relationship with our country and the “football” clash on TV
FROM OUR REPORTER
ZAPORIZHZHIA — When he plays in Italy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba plays at home. He knows the strengths, passions and weaknesses of our country. In Italy he began to love football, food and good wine. «And also the Tuscans. When he can, he has those from Toscano Antico sent to him », explain his closest collaborators. It is not strange, given that at the age of five he went to stay with a family from Irpinia, near Benevento, in the aid program for the “children of Chernobyl” after the disaster at the nuclear power plant. His home was in Sumy, about 500 kilometers away, too close to the source of the radiation. Thus, the family of marshal Domenico Ventre welcomed him «like a third son», they say themselves. So it is not strange that Dima (as they still call him) was so effective responding to Lucio Caracciolo and Marco Travaglio, guests of Lilli Gruber at «Otto e Mezzo» on Thursday evening. Kuleba was the first to introduce football metaphors and it immediately hit the net.
Like when he recalled that all the teams entering the field try to win, thinking otherwise would lead to defeat, it would be like going to look for it. You don’t go to equalize. “Before negotiating, the Russians need to withdraw from the occupied areas. What then happens in Russia does not concern us, it is enough for us to win and for them to leave,” he declared repeatedly. And he did not hold back in the face of Travaglio who underlined Putin’s “five to zero”. Sixteen months after the beginning of the invasion, in this reading, the five Russian goals would be the occupations of Crimea, already in 2014, and now of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. “We are waiting for the end of the match. In the famous match for the Champions League in Istanbul in May 2005, Milan were winning three to zero against Liverpool, it seemed done. But in the end the English prevailed on penalties. I remember it well, because it was an ordeal, I suffered like a dog, I’m a Milan fan. Never draw conclusions too quickly: I’m sure we will win », he reiterated, using the right tone for his spectators, to underline the agony of the Italian fans on that day.
Kuleba also remembered his “Italian soul” during his first interview with Corriere after the start of the war in the spring of last year, when he specified that he was in “direct contact” with his adopted family. On the beaches of Rimini and Riccione, attention was drawn to that serious-looking little boy who, in addition to Russian, Ukrainian and excellent English, was already getting along well with Italian. Yesterday he himself reminded us that his love for Milan became a passion with Shevchenko’s presence. And he added: «When, about fifteen years ago in Milan, I heard Verdi’s Nabucco and the famous chorus of “Va Pensiero” for the first time, I perceived it simply as a very famous aria. Only later did I realize that it was a powerful hymn to freedom and now, in moments of discouragement when I feel that I need the strength to fight, I listen to “Va Pensiero” again».
At the Foreign Ministry in Kiev they make fun of him when, while ordering pizza, he asks to drink a mixture of beer and Coca Cola. “I met him in the bars of the Campania villages, they call him” the bicycle “, and that’s fine with me”, he replies. The local press points out that when he has time on his travels abroad he often tries to meet sportsmen, and especially Ukrainian footballers hired by foreign teams. So in September 2020 in Spain he spoke for a long time with Roman Zozulja, then Albacete striker. And last March he had to pay the penalty with a bottle of fine wine to his British colleague James Cleverly, when the Ukrainian national team lost against the English two to nil.
July 1, 2023 (change July 1, 2023 | 22:27)
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