(Image source: La Presse)
Stoltenberg: “Kiev is free to use NATO weapons against Moscow”. Stop from Tajani: “Decisions must be collegial”
A ceasefire that establishes the current positions on the ground: these are the conditions to which Vladimir Putin would be ready to stop hostilities in Ukraine, according to Reuters which cites sources close to the Russian president. Putin himself stated that he was ready for negotiations, but added that the basis must be the draft outlined by Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul in March 2022. While his spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, denied that a freeze in hostilities on the current positions could be accepted.
Meanwhile the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has called on Atlantic Alliance allies who supply weapons to Ukraine to reconsider restrictions on their use against military targets on Russian territory. In an interview with the weekly The Economist, Stoltenberg explained that this measure would improve Ukraine’s defense capacity. “The time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions on the use of the weapons they donated to Ukraine, especially now that a lot of fighting is going on in Kharkiv, near the border, denying Ukraine the ability to use these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes defense very difficult,” adds Stoltenberg. “Ukraine has the right to defend yourself.” And this right, he underlines in the interview, “also includes striking targets on Russian territory”.
From Italy comes the firm “no” from ministers Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani. “Italy is not at war with anyone and if it was right to help Ukraine militarily, at the same time there is no question of lifting the ban on hitting military targets in Russia” declares the number one of the League on the sidelines of an electoral event in Pisa. “The League she is against sending even a single soldier to fight in Ukraine. We want peace, not the antechamber of the third world war”. The Foreign Minister is also holding back on the hypothesis put forward by Stoltenberg Antonio Tajani, who comments: “We are an integral part of NATO but every decision must be taken in a collegial manner.” The head of the Farnesina adds that “Kiev’s choices are Kiev’s choices” and seems to fully agree with Salvini both on not sending Italian soldiers to Ukraine and on the ban on using NATO weapons to attack Russia. “We will not send an Italian soldier to Ukraine and the military instruments sent by Italy are used inside Ukraine, we work for peace. The messages coming from Russia also cause a hybrid war that is being fought, but we must always work for peace and lower the tone.”
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