It should be clear to all observers by now that Vladimir Putin’s goal has always been, at the very minimum, to rewrite the post-Cold War international order. One of his main tactics has involved sinking wedges into European unity and undermining Transatlantic alliances – above all NATO.
Putin understood that although Germany was key to gaining a stranglehold over Europe, Italy was the continent’s soft underbelly. Germany could be coerced and choked through gas.
The knock-on effect would be to have the EU’s largest economy beholden to Gazprom. This was a very obvious tactic. More subtly, he recognized that by entering Europe’s lymph through its southern membrane – Italy – it could gain entrée into the continent’s hearts and minds.
On Tuesday, June 24, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi secured overwhelming support in the Senate for a resolution to continue arming Ukraine. In the lead-up to the vote, Italy’s largest party, the populist (and increasingly unpopular) 5-Star Movement, aired a very public rift regarding military support for Ukraine, which threatened to bring the government down and send Italy into yet another political crisis.
Luigi Di Maio, the current foreign minister and former head of the 5-Star Movement, fully supports Draghi and his commitment to helping Ukraine both militarily and in its efforts to join the EU. Giuseppe Conte, former prime minister and current leader of the 5-Movement, on the other hand, has called for a stop to arms shipments for Kyiv, claiming it would only prolong the war. Ultimately, Draghi called Conte’s bluff and won decisively.
Di Maio has now decided to leave the party, along with 60 other of the 227 5-Star senators, over the topic of Ukraine, saying: “Italy cannot afford indecision. We cannot afford ambiguity in deciding whether to be on the side of those who defend democracy or on the side of those who are trying to blackmail us with a gas blockade. Ukraine has defended Europe with courage and sacrifice.”
Although Draghi has won this battle, he faces constant pressure from a deeply rooted pro-Moscow front in Italy. This pressure comes from many directions: from influential industrialists who have long had business interests in Russia as well as from grassroots Russophilia, covering the gamut from extreme right-wing fascination with Putin as a strongman to residual left-wing nostalgia for the Soviet Union’s support of the once-thriving Italian Communist Party.
It seems the only ones who fully support NATO’s bid to help Ukraine militarily are the moderates: pro-EU, pro-American democrats who are often derided by sovereigntists as technocrats or NATO lackies.
As is usual in Italy, there are odd exceptions.
Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party fully backs the Draghi government with respect to Ukraine, despite staking out her position in Parliament as the only substantial opposition party.
Also, the center-left Democratic Party – still a bastion for erstwhile communists, even though its leader, Enrico Letta, is younger and comes from a Christian Democrat background – firmly support arming Ukraine.
The traditional pro-Russia stalwarts are Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant pro-business Lega, and Silvio Berlusconi, now the figurehead leader of Forza Italia, the party that dominated Italian politics while Putin was consolidating his power in Russia.
In the early 2000s the bromance between the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Putin was instrumental in Moscow’s gaining such a strong foothold in the Italian energy market.
After Berlusconi’s star began to fade, Matteo Salvini would take up the pro-Russia baton, posing on Moscow’s Red Square wearing a pro-Putin T-shirt.
Now, in typical Italian fashion, both of these Putinists have kept their respective parties in a state of carefully studied ambiguity vis-à-vis Russia. Salvini has recanted much of his previous rhetoric, but he understands that the winds may change again and his pro-business party base is eager to reopen trade with Russia.
As for Berlusconi, it took him a month after Russia attacked Ukraine to express “disappointment” with his friend Vladimir.
Ostensibly, Forza Italia supports the Draghi government and its Ukraine policy, but Berlusconi’s TV channels have been at the vanguard of giving disproportionate air time to Russian government officials and Putin propagandists who keep crawling out of the blogosphere – from former communist diehards to men who have fought alongside the Russians in the Donbas.
Draghi’s support for Ukraine has so far been unwavering.
Italy had proposed a peace plan at the UN, which was a non-starter for both Ukraine and Russia. Clearly it was a concession to domestic forces, including the Vatican, that insisted on continuing dialogue in the hopes of attaining a ceasefire. In the Byzantine context of Italian politics, such gestures of willingness to mediate are a necessary prelude for any position that may be interpreted as intransigent.
In the shifting sands of Italian politics, Draghi has played his hand well. He is once again proving himself to be an authoritative figure in a European landscape suffering from a dearth of leaders. Ultimately, Draghi may be Europe’s – and Ukraine’s – best hope for maintaining a united front against Russia.
Stash Luczkiw is a US-born journalist based in Italy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
