The Kremlin, which has called for the meeting, relies on our dependence on Russian gas. But the premier: we with the allies
The diplomatic office of Palazzo Chigi is waiting for a response from the Kremlin. it was Vladimir Putin who asked Mario Draghi to meet, but his offices have not yet communicated a useful space on the Russian president’s agenda. The Prime Minister he could fly to Moscow this weekperhaps Thursday or Friday coming, but there is still no certainty.
The one that appears at the moment a very delicate missionand ad high risk of failurehowever, hanging on the events of the next few hours and days.
The meaning of Draghi’s mission to the Kremlin moves along the lines of those carried out in recent days by both the German chancellor and the French president. Missions that have kept one an opening on the diplomatic level, but which have not produced fruit capable of halting the ongoing escalation. Ukrainian President Zelensky also asked Draghi to plead the cause of his face to face with Putin, a request that so far the Russian president has always refused. If the head of the Italian government could sit around the same table the two rivals his mission it would only be a success for that.
In any case, our Prime Minister will address some in the mission Italian specificities, which undoubtedly make it even more delicate than others. Our dependence on Russian gas, much greater than for other EU countries, a fact that Putin himself relied on over the phone with our premier, while Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov explicitly courted Italy, stating that it would be enough a country on the NATO front that opposed for nullify the sanctions. Draghi has already spoken on both issues: on the first point he clearly stated that Italian interests on sanctions can diverge from those of the allies, and that the sanctions should not include the issue of energy, while on the second point he rejected any flattery coming from Moscow: The unity of the western front is not in question and no one expected it, he remarked.
On the mission of Draghi intervened the Ukrainian ambassador to Italy, Yaroslav Melnykwhich he expressed gratitude for our premier: We remain firmly committed to one political-diplomatic solutionadded the ambassador and, together with our partners, we maximize the efforts to reduce tension and keep the situation in line with dialogue.
February 19, 2022 (change February 19, 2022 | 23:20)
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