Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto has told the BBC that for the most part, most Italians are against sending arms to Ukraine. He admitted this in an interview at his Ministry in Rome, the full text of which was released on Sunday. And, in the meantime, Italy continues to send aid.
LaPresse quotes him as saying in an interview to the BBC at the Defense Ministry in Rome: “The majority of public opinion is against aid to Ukraine. But we have put together 12 aid packages and by the end of the year we will probably manage to put together another one.”
On Ukraine, Crosetto said: “We know perfectly well that our public opinion, also influenced from abroad, is mostly opposed to aid to Ukraine.” He added: “Above all, you cannot give in to public opinion when you believe public opinion is wrong.” He also said: “Ukraine will never be able to win the war. My objective is to ensure Ukraine survives and to bring the war to an end.”
Ukraine cannot win the war against Russia, Defense Minister Crosetto said in the interview to the BBC, adding that his goal is for Ukraine to survive and for the war to end. Victory for Ukraine, he said, would be “a victory for peace, a victory for justice, a victory for international law.”
A September poll by the Ixè institute found that only 18% of Italians want to continue to supply arms to Ukraine while the majority is looking on as prices skyrocket due to high energy costs. On Friday, in Rome, students from Italy’s secondary schools held a protest and chanted “We want more classroom, not more bombs” while truckers in the South have begun to block the roads in order to protest the sky rocketing prices of fuel. Crosetto blames the Russian disinformation campaign for the shift in public opinion. “It’s very hard to explain to a citizen who’s having trouble at the petrol pump that we can’t give any concessions to Russia right now,” he told the BBC.
