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Zelensky: "Respect for the Pope, but we don't need mediators"

2023-05-14T07:17:25.419Z

Highlights: "We need a just peace, you can't mediate with Putin," Volodymyr Zelensky told Pope Francis. Pope Francis gave the Ukrainian president a bronze olive branch, a symbol of peace. Zelenski asked the Pope "to condemn Russian crimes in Ukraine, because there can be no equality between the victim and the aggressor" The only result achieved today is precisely on the humanitarian front, that is, the commitment made by the Pope on deported children, writes Alessandra Borrelli.


"We need a just peace, you can't mediate with Putin." The Ukrainian president received by the pontiff in the so-called Auletta adjacent to the Paul VI Hall. First the meeting with Meloni: "Ukraine will win". The Ukrainian leader: "We will not forget" (ANSA)


"I am not willing to talk to Putin, a small leader who also kills his own people," the solution for Ukraine "is a counteroffensive: when we are on the border with Crimea, support for Putin inside Russia will diminish and he will have to find a way out. It's not far away." Few but clear words those of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who reiterate the will to find a "just peace for Ukraine" but close the door, for the moment, to any mediation. Even the one that has been laboriously trying to carry on the Vatican for over fourteen months. "With all due respect to His Holiness, we do not need mediators, we need a just peace," Zelensky said after forty minutes of face-to-face with Pope Francis, whom he also invited to Kiev. If ever there can be a peace plan it is only the "Ukrainian" one, and he himself asked the Pope to "join its implementation".

ANSA Agency

Meloni: "Ukraine will win." Zelensky: "I will not forget the help" - Politics

The joint press conference of the Prime Minister and the Ukrainian leader (ANSA)

Zelensky's statements mark a distance that seems unbridgeable with that Vatican diplomacy that would like to bring the two sides, Ukraine and Russia, to sit around the same table. The Ukrainian leader remarks rather that he asked the Pope "to condemn Russian crimes in Ukraine, because there can be no equality between the victim and the aggressor." Only the most optimistic hoped that today in the Vatican the peace process would open or at least some glimmer of hope for a ceasefire, but few perhaps imagined a closure to any "path of encounter and path of dialogue towards peace" on which the Pope had insisted just a couple of hours before meeting the Ukrainian president. Even in the communications of the Vatican, at the end of the confrontation, the word "peace" thus slips into the background. "The Pope stressed in particular the urgent need for gestures of humanity towards the most fragile people, innocent victims of the conflict," said spokesman Matteo Bruni on the closed-door conversation. And in fact, the only result achieved today is precisely on the humanitarian front, that is, the commitment made by the Pope on deported children. "We must make every effort to bring them home," the Ukrainian president agreed.

ANSA Agency

Zelensky: 'Italy is on the right side in this war' - THE FILM OF THE DAY - Politics

The movie of the day. The Ukrainian president landed at Ciampino airport. Foreign Minister Tajani is waiting for him. The photodirect. He saw first the President of the Republic Mattarella: 'We are fully at your side'. Then Prime Minister Meloni: 'Military aid until a just peace'. In the afternoon he sees the Pope Armored City, the security plan taken (ANSA)

The differences between the Pope and Zelensky were already noticeable in the exchange of gifts: Francis gave a bronze olive branch, a symbol of peace. The president reciprocated with a decorated plate extracted from a bulletproof vest. Francis welcomed him with the picket of honor of the Swiss Guards. Zelensky arrived, as indeed he had done in the meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Mattarella of the Republic, in military attire. Of course, a certain emotion also shines through in that gesture of the Ukrainian president who brings his hand to his heart when he sees the elderly Pope waiting for him standing at the door. But when he sits at the dialogue table he pulls out two folders written perhaps to make the most of the opportunity of the interview, without forgetting anything. Zelensky's day in Rome had begun at the Quirinale with Mattarella. "I reaffirm Italy's full support to Ukraine in terms of military, financial, humanitarian and reconstruction aid, in the short and long term. Not only the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine are at stake, but also the freedom of peoples and international order," the head of state reassured. Then the stop at Palazzo Chigi, where the great harmony between the premier and the Ukrainian president was confirmed. "We will continue to provide support, including military, so that Ukraine can come to the negotiations with a solid position. This is important because peace cannot be achieved with any position of surrender," Meloni said. A promise with which Zelensky can leave Rome satisfied. As soon as he landed in Italy, on the other hand, he had remarked that his goal is "victory" rather than the opening of a difficult, but "urgent", to use the Pope's words, the way to peace.

THE VIDEOGALLERY

ANSA Agency

Zelensky's visit to Rome - VIDEOS - World

(ANSA)

Source: ansa

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