A new interview is scheduled for next week
In the Chigi Palace, they carefully prepared contact with the Kremlin. The last one was almost two months ago, when the crisis was in progress, but nobody in the western chancellery thought that Moscow would really launch a military attack on Ukraine. Now there will be more, maybe as early as next week, because both sides have agreed on the possibility of staying in touch. The conversation after the hypothesis of a trip by the Prime Minister to Moscow was canceled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February is long, lasting almost an hour.
negotiations
Draghi asks the Kremlin chief many questions to understand the extent to which the negotiations, which opened in Istanbul on Tuesday, are yielding results. The US and EU remain skeptical of real progress without a ceasefire, which Draghi is calling for “as soon as possible” to “protect” civilians and “support negotiation efforts.” He reiterated to his interlocutor the willingness of the Italian government to contribute to the peace process, although, as he repeated several times, there were “clear signs” of deescalation on the part of Russia.
glimmer of peace
So far, the prime minister argued at all public events, Putin had never given any real sign of a will to peace, disregarded commitments to humanitarian corridors and continued to hit cities with heavy artillery even on the eve of the Istanbul talks. Now a few rays of hope are emerging from Kyiv and Moscow, recognized in alternating phases and sometimes contradictory readings: “We will evaluate the Russian announcements based on the facts,” said Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio in the morning when announcing the phone call. The same “realism” with which Draghi listened to Putin say he was “optimistic” about the outcome of the negotiations.
Putin satisfied on the issue of Ukraine’s neutrality
The Russian leader expressed his satisfaction to the Italian Prime Minister because Ukraine accepts the issue of territorial neutrality, which Italy, along with other allies, could act as a guarantor for. Of course, it would be difficult to comply with Ukraine’s demand for a “defense obligation to which guarantee countries should be bound. But “we are at a preliminary stage”, first “we will achieve peace”, then we will consider the possible scenarios of future aggression, Italian diplomatic sources interrupted.
Putin calls Scholz about gas payments
The gas issue seems to remain in the background, even when billions are at stake: Putin, simply by saying to Palazzo Chigi, “described the Russian gas payment system in rubles”. In Moscow, according to the European interpretation, the system of sanctions would begin to weigh. So much so that Putin himself, in a conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has since assured that payments could still be made in euros for the time being. And that the conversion to the Russian currency is definitely not “pejorative” for the contracts signed by European customers. On this point, Draghi would have listened without replying, but the position of Italy and its allies had already become clear at last week’s summits in Brussels. A request for payment in rubles would be “illegal”, a “violation” of the treaties vehemently rejected by the EU and the G7.