Giorgia Meloni in Ukraine a few days before the anniversary of the Russian invasion. The Prime Minister came by train a Kyiv, in the afternoon he will meet the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Prime Minister was greeted with a bouquet of flowers with a smile before exiting the train station and boarding the car for the hotel. “I’m honored I have to be here”he said as he got off the train. “I am determined to understand what these people need,” she added, responding to those who asked if she was excited. “I think it’s only right to be here to affirm the position of the Italian government and maybe also to see personally what a people fighting for freedom needs.” “It’s always different to see it with your own eyes, I think it helps the Italians understand it too.”
Giorgia Meloni in Kiev: “Honoured, it is a duty to be here”
Then Prime Minister Meloni arrived in Buchaone of the scenes of massacres of civilians by the Russian army in Ukraine in March last year. Meloni placed red flowers to pay homage to the victims in mass graves. In front of this symbolic place, the Prime Minister closed in memory. “You can count on Italy, we have been with you from the beginning and we will be until the end. You have our full support,” the prime minister told Ukrainian authorities. A medal made from used bullets pays homage to the Prime Minister during her visit to Bucha. Meloni studied the medal carefully and read the engraving on the back aloud: “City not conquered”. Meloni sometimes listened with emotion to the stories of various Ukrainian authorities about the tragedies caused by Russian aggression in those places. After even looking at a small photo exhibition with images of the horrors, the Prime Minister asked the interpreter to translate a message for her interlocutors: “You are not alone”. “We will fight for you and your freedom“.
After Bucha, the visit to Irpin, which were heavily bombed in the early stages of the war. In Irpin, which also stopped last year during Mario Draghi’s visit to French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Prime Minister is delivering to local authorities two generators to support critical infrastructure, part of a batch of 52 z over The Italian government donated 660,000 euros to Ukraine. Italian associations active in Kiev were present at the symbolic ceremony, along with two of the 45 fire engines donated by the Italians. Greeted by the Mayor in Irpin, the Prime Minister listened to the Mayor’s story of the destruction of this area and asked him various questions about the population and how long it would take to rebuild the city. “If you have the money,” the mayor replied, “the whole city can be rebuilt in two years.” “What we heard this morning was propaganda that we already know, the facts are different,” the Prime Minister also said, commenting on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech.
“It’s different talking about numbers or seeing how people’s lives are being destroyed without a reason – Meloni said before leaving Irpin to return to Kiev, where he will meet President Zelenskyy – we saw flowers and stuffed animals: it is different, it is worth seeing.”
THE JOURNEY TO UKRAINE
At night, around two o’clock, stopping for controls in Lviv, having crossed the border with Poland on a blue train, a special convoy drove from Przemysl station towards the Ukrainian capital.
The Prime Minister with the Italian delegation (with her, among others, the Undersecretary of State in the Presidency Giovanbattista Fazzolari) arrived in Warsaw yesterday afternoon, where she met with Prime Minister Morawiecki and President Duda and then left for Kiev.
The prime minister’s trip to Kyiv
REPORTER’S PODCAST, trip to Ukraine
Ukraine, the report of the ANSA envoy from Bucha in April last year
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