- Italian PM Mario Draghi said he’s starting to believe that talking to Putin is” a waste of time.”
- Draghi said he began losing faith in talks with Moscow after mass killings were discovered in Bucha.
- He also warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal has “not been the search for peace.”
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, saying he’s starting to believe it’s “just a waste of time” to engage with his counterpart in Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.
“I am beginning to think that those people are right when they say: ‘It is useless to talk to him, it’s just a waste of time’,” Draghi told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera.
Draghi spoke of a March 30 telephone call between him and Putin and said the Russian leader had discussed the possibility of Italy buying Russian gas with rubles. The country is said to import 40% of its gas from Russia.
The prime minister said both sides agreed to speak again within the next few days.
“Then came the horror of Bucha,” Draghi said, referring to the Kyiv suburb where authorities uncovered mass killings of civilians after Russian forces left the area.
The prime minister said he believed French President Emmanuel Macron, who has tried to position himself at the forefront of the EU’s negotiations with Putin, is “right to try every possible avenue of dialogue.”
“But I have the impression that the horror of war with its carnage, with what they did to children and women, is completely independent of the words and phone calls that are made,” Draghi continued.
“So far, Putin’s goal has not been the search for peace, but the attempt to annihilate the Ukrainian resistance, occupy the country and entrust it to a friendly government,” added the prime minister.
When asked if he shared President Joe Biden’s labeling of the Bucha killings as “war crimes,” Draghi said: “What do we want to call Bucha’s horror if not war crimes?”
Still, the Italian prime minister said terms like “genocide” and “war crimes” have “a precise legal meaning.”
“There will be a way and time to check which words best fit the inhuman acts of the Russian army,” Draghi said.
Draghi, the former chief of the EU Central Bank, was appointed prime minister in February 2021 after his predecessor, Giuseppe Conte, stepped down amid the COVID-19 pandemic and severe economic downturn.
In recent weeks, Draghi had sought to diversify Italy’s gas imports via deals across Africa, and encouraged European nations to band together and cap prices on Russian gas.
“The market power that the European Union has vis-à-vis Moscow is a weapon to be used,” he told Il Corriere della Sera. “A cap on the price of gas reduces the financing we give to Russia every day.”
