Giorgia Meloni Has Wrong-Footed the Kremlin

On Nov. 5, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked European Council President António Costa a question the European Union has left unanswered for far too long. Who has the authority to speak for the EU in negotiations to end Russia’s war against Ukraine?In her letter to Costa, Meloni pointed to a series of uncoordinated diplomatic initiatives, including individual European leaders holding talks with Vladimir Putin. She called for a decision at the December summit and made clear that she was seeking the role neither for herself nor for Italy. At a time when Moscow is counting on European divisions, the prime minister of one of the EU’s largest countries has asked her fellow leaders to agree on who speaks for them. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.Four years ago, many expected Meloni herself to be the source of just such a division. Her party had roots in Italy’s post-fascist tradition, and her coalition partners gave her critics plenty of ammunition. Silvio Berlusconi spoke openly about his friendship with Putin. Matteo Salvini had spent years expressing sympathy for the Kremlin. The expectation was that, under Meloni, Italy would become the West’s weak link on Ukraine.The line she drew with BerlusconiMeloni made her position clear before she even entered office. When Berlusconi sought to excuse Moscow’s invasion and attacked Volodymyr Zelensky in the autumn of 2022, she told him there would be no place in her government for parties that rejected Italy’s European and Atlantic commitments. She needed Berlusconi to form a coalition. Yet she chose Russia and Ukraine as the issue on which she would not compromise. Other Topics of Interest Nobody Knows Anything The 2026 election thinned out the people in Congress who knew how to write a Ukraine bill. In doing so, Meloni posed a question to Europe’s right that many of its politicians would still prefer to avoid. If patriotism rests on a people’s right to determine its own future, what could be more patriotic than Ukraine’s resistance to Russian occupation? No one can credibly defend the sovereignty of their own country while accepting Russia’s supposed right to dictate a neighboring nation’s borders and government by force. Yet some European nationalists try to reconcile those positions by treating Moscow’s territorial demands as the basis for peace.At the Crimea Platform summit on Aug. 23, 2023, Meloni reminded her audience that Russia’s aggression had begun in 2014, with the seizure of Crimea and the occupation of parts of the Donbas. She also acknowledged that Western governments had been wrong to assume Putin would stop there. After Crimea, major business deals continued, energy ties endured and diplomats tried to bring relations with Moscow back within acceptable bounds. Putin drew the lesson that military conquest could become an accepted political fact. Ukraine was left to live with the consequences. “Your freedom is freedom for the whole of Europe,” Meloni told Ukrainians that day. That argument has particular force for Italy. If Russia can force Ukraine to surrender territory and accept limits on its independence, the next European country it threatens will face a Kremlin with good reason to believe that aggression pays. Should that country be a NATO member, Italy and its allies would face a choice between a military response and abandoning their commitment to collective defense. Either would carry a grave cost. It is far wiser to prevent that dilemma while Ukrainians are still fighting the aggressor themselves.What supporting Ukraine could cost herMeloni is prepared to make that case to Italian voters. In September, she told Il Foglio that, in purely electoral terms, it would have been easier not to support Ukraine. Ahead of next year’s election, she ruled out an alliance with parties that vote against military aid for Kyiv. Salvini opposes further arms deliveries, and some voters on the right want closer ties with Moscow and an end to sanctions. Every new package for Kyiv gives Meloni’s coalition partners an opportunity to reopen the argument. She has had ample opportunity to scale back assistance and spare herself the confrontation. Instead, her government is preparing a 13th military assistance package for Kyiv. Italy has already supplied air defense equipment, and Defense Minister Guido Crosetto has said he will seek to extend the aid arrangements into 2027 despite opposition within the coalition. In 2025, Rome also hosted the Ukraine Recovery Conference, bringing governments, financial institutions and businesses together to plan for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Putin’s strategy toward the West depends in part on the expectation that elections will eventually deliver what his army cannot. He has every interest in Italian politicians turning each shipment of air defense equipment into an argument about what it might cost them at the polls. Ukrainian families, meanwhile, are raising children for whom air-raid sirens are part of ordinary life. They know precisely what a shortage of air defenses can cost.From Trump’s diesel deal to the December summitOn Oct. 14, that same understanding of Italy’s interests put Meloni at odds with Donald Trump. Speaking in the Italian parliament, she called his agreement with Russia on diesel supplies a very risky decision. She warned that the deal could give Moscow additional revenue to finance its war, weaken sanctions and lend Russia legitimacy while Russian bombs continued to fall on Ukrainian cities.Meloni shares much of Trump’s conservative outlook and has invested in good relations with his administration. That is what gave her criticism weight. Relations with the United States are a cornerstone of European security. But a European leader who believes an American decision will help sustain Russia’s war economy ought to be able to say so in public. Meloni did.Her letter to Costa brings the argument back to Europe. Individual leaders can hold talks with Putin, but who gave any one of them a mandate to speak for the other member states? Meloni wants the EU to agree on a representative at its December summit and to coordinate with Britain, Norway and other partners. Costa has agreed to raise the issue with EU leaders. By declining to put herself forward, Meloni has left her colleagues to answer the question on its merits. If they want Europe’s interests represented in negotiations, they must decide who has the authority to represent them. In 2022, many judged Meloni by her party’s origins and her coalition partners’ ties to Moscow. Four years later, they can judge her by her decisions. She drew a line with Berlusconi when she needed his support to take office. She challenged Trump over a deal she believed would help finance Russia’s war. And she has told her own voters why defending Ukraine matters to Italy, even if some of them vote against her for it.Those who casually dismissed Meloni as just another European populist owe the public an honest admission that they were wrong. As for her fellow European leaders, they might recall what she told Ukrainians in 2023. If Ukrainian freedom is the freedom of all Europe, surely it is worth risking an election for. Dr. Orhan Dragaš is a Serbian expert on security and international relations. He is the founder and director of the International Security Institute, based in Belgrade; author of numerous expert articles, newspaper columns, as well as the books "The modern intelligence-security community, utopia or reality"; and; "Two faces of globalization – truth and deceptions."