IRIA News

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Rome on May 13, 2023, to conduct high-level meetings with the Italian leadership and visited Vatican City to meet Pope Francis. Zelenskyy arrived at Rome’s Ciampino airport, located in a military field, and was received by the country’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

Zelenskyy described his trip to Italy as an “important visit for approaching victory of Ukraine.” Soon after arriving in Rome, Zelenskyy met with Pope Francis in the Vatican City. Pope Francis has been directly and indirectly supporting Ukraine by presenting peace plans to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a 40 minutes long meeting with the Pope, Zelenskyy said expressed his gratitude to the Pope for “his personal attention to the tragedy of millions of Ukrainians.” Last month, the Pope told reporters that he had been engaged in behind-the-scene efforts to bring peace and stability to Ukraine. Zelenskyy asked the pope “to clearly condemn Russian crimes in Ukraine. Because there can be no equality between the victim and the aggressor”.

In separate meetings in Rome, the Ukrainian President also met with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. During the meeting, Meloni emphasized that Italy stands behind Ukraine as she condemned Russia’s “brutal and unjust aggression” against Ukraine.

Today in Rome. As always with such visits, we have a result. Today, we have become stronger.

I met with the 🇮🇹 President and the President of the Council of Ministers @GiorgiaMeloni. I’m grateful to them for the political decisions to increase aid for 🇺🇦.

I met with Pope… pic.twitter.com/TWn4UiQ05w

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 13, 2023

Italian leadership pledged their support for Kyiv during the meeting and urge Moscow to immediately withdraw from Ukraine. Zelenskyy thanked Meloni “for helping to save lives” in Ukraine. This was the first time the Ukrainian President visited Italy since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022.

Meloni declared further support for the Black Sea Grain Initiative to ensure world food security, restoration of critical infrastructure of Ukraine, cooperation between the two countries in the medical field, and protection of Ukrainian cultural heritage, the Ukrainian Presidential Office statement highlighted.

According to the Presidential Office of Ukraine statement, Zelenskyy said that the two leaders also discussed “our cooperation, in particular, security and defense. We have a very important decision about protecting our sky”.

Zelenskyy further added that Ukraine and Italy need “more security, more cooperation, more opportunities to restore peace” and highlighted that Ukraine wants more Italian businesses’ participation in recovery projects of the country.

Ukraine’s European partners have been ramping up support for Kyiv as it prepares to launch a new wave of counteroffensive. For the first time, Ukraine received delivery of long-range cruise missiles from the United Kingdom this week. The missiles have increased the Ukrainian force’s strike capabilities from 80 kilometers to 250 kilometers. Russia claims that Ukraine has already started to use long-range missiles to attack Russian targets.

After finishing his trip to Italy, the Ukrainian President is expected to go to Germany, however, the trip has not been confirmed from either side. In the largest military support package for Ukraine, Berlin announced that it would be sending $2.9 billion worth of weapons and equipment to Kyiv. The equipment includes 20 more Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 30 Leopard-1 tanks, and four IRIS-T-SLM air defense systems.

In a separate event on the same day, Russian media reported that a Russian helicopter and fighter jet had crashed in the Russian region of Bryansk. Details about the cause of the crash were not provided by Russian media. A two-seat Mi-8 helicopter crashed in an uninhabited area near the town of Klinsty while a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter jet also crashed in the same region.