Meloni calls Trump's Russian diesel deal with Putin "very risky"
Ahead of the EU summit, Italy's prime minister criticized the Trump-Putin agreement on Russian diesel. Moscow shot back: "It is none of her business."
Archive image · Photo: Governo Italiano / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 it (cropped and resized)
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday told the Senate that U.S. President Donald Trump's agreement with Vladimir Putin on Russian diesel was "a very risky choice" and "a legitimisation for Moscow while its bombs are still falling on Ukrainian cities." She warned of an "implicit weakening of the sanctions lever" and said the surge in fuel prices stems mainly from the war in Iran, not the conflict in Ukraine.
Meloni said her government's position on Ukraine is unchanged. "No one will convince me that the surrender of those defending their freedom can be called peace," she said, according to ANSA. If France, Germany and Britain negotiate on their own, they should do so "on behalf of everyone and with an official mandate," she added. On energy, she called for a rapid, coordinated European response, saying costs weigh most heavily on the economy.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Italian media: "It is none of her business." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Meloni on X. At home, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said Italy "cannot go on indefinitely sending billions" to Ukraine as gifts, Euronews reported.