Italian Deputy PM Tajani Urges Zelensky to Include Italy, Poland in Peace Talks

September 10 ------ Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to include Italy and Poland in initiatives aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Speaking at a press briefing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Wednesday, Sept. 9, Tajani said Ukraine should engage the EU as a whole – rather than relying on limited groups of individual states, such as Germany and France. “We will continue to help Ukraine defend itself without sending our troops,” Tajani said, according to Italian news outlet Ansa.

Europe to be involved in future peace talks

Zelensky said Europe would be represented in all future formats of peace negotiations, as its presence was necessary not only for postwar reconstruction, but also for future security guarantees alongside the US, Ukrinform reported on Tuesday, Sept. 8. “For Europe, it is important to be in the negotiation process, because they think about security,” Zelensky said, noting that EU countries have a direct interest in the peace talks since the outcome would affect broader security across the continent. He added that European intelligence officials and diplomats remain in contact with their Russian counterparts.

Italy’s diplomatic stance on war in Ukraine

Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, ousted on July 15 as part of Zelensky’s broader cabinet reshuffle, announced on Aug. 28 that he had accepted Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto’s invitation to serve as an adviser on defense innovation. “Ukraine’s experience can become the foundation for a new European defense model,” Fedorov said, adding that “the future of defense belongs to countries able to quickly test and scale new solutions, combining technology with strong manufacturing.”

Although Italy appears to benefit from Ukraine’s battlefield knowledge, it has maintained its broader policy approach during the war, refusing to contribute funds to NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) – which finances purchases of US-made weapons for Ukraine, and pushing back on some of the EU’s sanctions against Russia.

Crosetto said on June 19 that Rome opposed the mechanism but maintained that other channels could provide Ukraine with the military support it needs. “We have said no from the beginning, and it is still a no,” he said, despite last year’s announcement that Rome was warming up to the idea of taking part in PURL. Crosetto has also consistently ruled out deploying Italian troops to Ukraine as well, saying that direct military intervention would risk escalating the conflict. At the same time, he has said Italy supports assisting Ukraine “in every possible way” short of sending its forces into the country.

European air defense cooperation and peace negotiations

Tajani’s remarks came as Zelensky met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and heads of defense companies from partner nations in Oslo earlier on Wednesday, in an aim to push forward the FREYJA anti-ballistic missile program – a defense initiative aimed at building alternatives to the US-made Patriot interceptors.

The program provides Europe with integrated protection against aerial threats through joint efforts of Italy, Ukraine, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. “Protecting European skies is our shared cause,” Zelensky said.

On Tuesday, Ukraine announced it was signing contracts with partners for the supply of about 1,000 Patriot missiles for its air defense systems ahead of the winter. Germany said it would urgently transfer PAC-2 missiles to Ukraine from its own Bundeswehr stocks.

In their first visit to Ukraine as Washington’s intermediaries, senior US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Kyiv by train on Sunday, Sept. 6, where they held bilateral talks with Zelensky, followed by a multilateral session that included national security advisers from the UK, France, and Germany. The envoys also visited Moscow, where they held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday evening, Sept. 5.

As of Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who visited Russia two weeks ago in his first trip to Moscow during his tenure, may be preparing to take a more prominent role in US-led talks with Russia and Ukraine, possibly replacing Witkoff and Kushner. According to Politico on Aug. 26, Ratcliffe warned Putin against attacking a NATO member, with the discussion centering on the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Source: kyivpost.com