Italian Prime Minister visits Kyiv to show support for Ukraine

Europe, News February 22, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni joined the list of western leaders to visit the war-torn capital of Ukraine. She arrived in Kyiv on February 21, 2023, to meet with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Soon after taking office in October 2022, Meloni expressed her desire to visit Kyiv to show her support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion. The NATO member Italy has provided much financial support to Ukraine during the last year, and earlier this month agreed to send mobile surface-to-air missile systems that it has jointly developed with France.

Meloni met with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv and reaffirmed her country’s support for Ukraine. “We have provided financial, military, humanitarian, and civilian support,” Meloni said in a conference in Warsaw after visiting the Ukrainian capital. “Ukraine can certainly count on Italy because we have shown since the start, that we were here (for Kyiv) and we will continue to be here,” she added.

I was glad to welcome the distinguished guest of the Prime Minister of Italy @GiorgiaMeloni in the Hero City of Irpin.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, @GiorgiaMeloni has decisively demonstrated the support and her pro-Ukrainian position to Ukraine!🇺🇦🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/XQAl7DknGm
— Oleksandr Markushyn (@markushyn) February 22, 2023

Meloni, the far-right leader of the Brothers of Italy party took office in 2022. Due to her political views and her party’s far-right ideology, she has not gotten as close to the European leaders on matters related to Ukraine as her predecessor Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Meloni was irked for being left out of the gathering earlier this month when Ukrainian President Zelenskyy arrived in France to meet French President and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

A cold shoulder from her European counterparts on matters related to the Ukraine war is due to her coalition’s pro-Russia approach. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, has in the past spoken admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin and even worn a T-shirt bearing the Russian president’s face. Meanwhile, former premier Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is the junior partner in the coalition, has sought to shift blame for the war away from Moscow, most recently earlier this month when he criticized Zelenskyy.

Meloni Rules out giving fighter jets to Ukraine

The Ukrainian President has been making repeated requests for his western partners to provide his forces with fighter jets to counter Russia’s upcoming offense. He had put the same request in front of the Italian leader during their meeting in Kyiv.

^{Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a joint news briefing, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 21, 2023. (Image Credit: Reuters/Gleb Garanich)}

Meloni ruled out the possibility of providing fighter jets to Ukraine anytime soon. While speaking at a press conference with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy during a visit to Kyiv, Giorgia Meloni said, “At the moment the supply of planes is not on the table,” adding that any decision would be made “in consultation with international partners.”

Ukraine had been eyeing older AMX ground attack fighter jets jointly built by Italy’s Leonardo and Brazil’s Embraer. The Italian air force currently operated 135 AMX fighter jets that were inducted into the fleet in 1989. The aircraft saw service with Italy in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, Libya in 2011, and Afghanistan and is now being replaced by the F-35.