Between Saturday and Sunday, several Italian newspapers and news sites grossly misrepresented two statements on Ukraine, one by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the other by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, causing a stir (some with some explicitness and aggression).
Previously, they claimed that Zelenskyy said in a speech at the British study center Chatham House that his government was ready to accept Russia’s sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, but Zelenskyy had said nothing of the sort. Then they added that Stoltenberg opposed Zelenskyy’s opening in an interview, effectively preventing what appeared to be a very important breakthrough in the peace talks.
As Valigia Blu noted in a detailed reconstruction, both testimonies – Zelensky’s and Stoltenberg’s – had been misrepresented by the Italian press, which had thus “completely distorted the facts”.
If we look through the interview given by NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg to the German newspaper Welt and Ukrainian President Zelensky’s speech to the British think tank Chatham House, we find that:
1. Zelenskyy never explicitly spoke of Crimea or referred to it indirectly
2. Stoltenberg actually stated that the NATO countries “will never recognize the annexation of Crimea” when responding to a question about how the Atlantic Alliance envisages the end of the war, but he gave no warning to Ukraine and actually stressed that that “the Allies support the sovereignty and territorial unity of Ukraine in relation to the recognized borders. (…) The decision on how to shape peace lies with the government and the sovereign people of Ukraine. We can’t decide.” [Va ricordato che l’annessione della Crimea non è riconosciuta dall’ampia maggioranza della comunità internazionale sin dal 2014 e che l’Ucraina rivendica l’intera penisola e la considera “territorio temporaneamente occupato”].
(read more on the Valigia Blu website)