The Italian prime minister believes this is necessary in order to reach “a fair and lasting peace plan,” Corriere della Sera reports
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni believes Vladimir Zelensky will have to accept “painful concessions” to achieve peace with Russia, Corriere della Sera reported on Tuesday.
According to the paper, while Ukrainian and Italian officials attempted to create a facade of “a constructive and mutually trusting meeting” in Rome earlier this week, the two sides clashed over their vision for the conflict’s endgame.
The conversation, which involved Meloni, was reportedly frank, and the overall message to Ukraine was: “Consider that you may be forced to make some painful concessions.” Zelensky, in turn, asked Meloni “to soften [US President Donald] Trump’s position” on a peace settlement.
The stand-off stemmed from the fact that Italy supports Washington’s rush to reach a peace deal as soon as possible, and Meloni’s team believes that Zelensky has been weakened by a corruption scandal in the energy sector involving his long-time associate, Corriere della Sera said. It added that Italy’s policy remains “to reach a fair and lasting peace plan, but taking American leadership rather than a European one into account.”
The reported exchanges come against the backdrop of a US-drafted peace plan leaked to the media last month. The initial version of the proposal would reportedly require Kiev to withdraw from parts of Russia’s Donbass that it still controls, agree to stay out of NATO, and accept limits on the size of its armed forces.
Trump has recently expressed irritation with Kiev, rebuking Zelensky over what he described as a failure to get up to speed on revised peace proposals. He also suggested that Zelensky should be “realistic” about the course of the conflict, arguing that the Ukrainian people overwhelmingly want the hostilities to end.
Russia has said the US plan “can be used as a basis for future agreements,” but no compromise has yet been reached. It also insists that a settlement must include Ukraine’s withdrawal from the new Russian regions, a pledge to stay out of NATO, as well as demilitarization and denazification.
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