Ukraine, Zelensky meets Giorgia Meloni: “Thank you for supporting a just peace”

“I thank Giorgia Meloni and the Italian people for their support and efforts to restore a just peace.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote this on X, reporting on the meeting he had with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, with whom “we spoke about the implementation of the Peace Formula, with Italy playing an active role on all its points.”

“One of the key topics we discussed was the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine, focusing in particular on the restoration of our energy system. We deeply appreciate Italy’s decision to host the next Ukraine Recovery Conference in 2025,” the post continues.

“The conversation with Zelensky? We discussed how to continue working to ensure legitimate defense and to reach a just peace,” Meloni said during her speech at the Forum. “The theses I supported two years ago on Ukraine are the same ones I support now as Prime Minister: we must not give up on Ukraine and we must continue to support it.”

“We must stop believing Russian propaganda, Ukraine’s fate is not sealed. I have been hearing for months and months – Meloni said – that Ukraine is losing the war while Russia is winning: the conflict in Ukraine was born with the idea of ​​a ‘lightning war’ that in a few days should have led to the conquest of Kiev by Russia: this has not happened, Russia is not winning the war, but we find ourselves in a stalemate phase of the conflict. “In February 2023 – the prime minister explained – Russia controlled 17.3% of Ukrainian territory, after a year of war it controls 17.5: we helped create this stalemate, by supporting Kiev because at the beginning of the invasion there was an enormous disproportion of forces in the field”, she concluded.