Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome, welcomed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. After a warm embrace between the two presidents outside the Casino del Bel Respiro, Zelensky was greeted by the honor guard of the Lancieri di Montebello. After the playing of the national anthems, the bilateral meeting began. Rome is the third stop, after London and Paris, of the Ukrainian President's tour of Europe. Tomorrow Zelensky will meet the Pope in the Vatican and Chancellor Scholz in Berlin.
After the postponement of the Ramstein summit, the Ukrainian president has launched his “European summit in stages”: four capitals in 48 hours to collect crucial political and military aid, in view of a winter that aims to give substance to his “victory plan” as a bridge to a second peace summit. Making it clear that a “ceasefire” is not an “issue” on the table of discussions these days, and that Kiev is not willing to make any concession, much less territorial, to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
At Downing Street, Zelensky outlined his victory plan to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. In addition to outlining his victory plan, Zelensky’s tour is also about reassuring his allies about their military support. “Our support is unwavering,” Macron said. But behind the clear statements, each additional month of conflict weighs exponentially on the pockets of Western budgets committed to militarily funding Ukrainian forces.
Meanwhile, the first fruits of Zelensky's lightning trip to Europe seem to be arriving from the United Kingdom: according to the Times, the British Defense is considering sending military instructors to Ukraine to train Kiev's troops. They would be - claims the newspaper citing sources - small groups of soldiers from Her Majesty's Army to be deployed in the west of the country. A development, that of sending Western troops to Ukraine, which Moscow has long defined as a red line not to be crossed, as well as that of attacks with Western long-range weapons on Russian territory. The latter is a central point of Zelensky's tour of Europe: Western allies are hesitant to give the green light to raids in Russia with long-range missiles, aware of the Kremlin's threats of a nuclear response.
But the deep strikes are one of the key elements of Zelensky's "victory plan" discussed in these hours with European leaders, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in their bilateral meeting in Rome. Kiev is counting on Italian support for its roadmap to strengthen the Ukrainian position in view of a possible negotiation with Moscow. But the Italian government is among the strongest supporters of the ban on the use of long-range missiles in Russia, a position similar to that of Germany. Also dividing the allies is a possible entry of Kiev into NATO, another central point of the plan devised by Zelensky. In this sense, the words of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, visiting St. Petersburg, are unequivocal: allowing Ukraine to enter the Alliance "in the current circumstances" would cause the "Third World War".
(Unioneonline/D)
