The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will summon Italian Ambassador to Ukraine Davide La Cecilia due to recent statements made by Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini about alleged legality of Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula in 2014, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister for European Integration Olena Zerkal has said.
“We are responding. We will meet with the Italian ambassador on Monday,” she said live on Ukraine’s Channel 5 on Friday, when asked how the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will respond to Salvini’s statement.
At the same time, Zerkal noted that the Italian ambassador is “a very pleasant person” and “cannot answer for the words of his politicians, especially given that this politician [Salvini] went to Crimea and has just returned from Moscow, where, according to the information we have, he met with Mr. Putin.”
“Therefore, it is probably not worth expecting something else from a person who has been a functionary of this ‘Northern League’ since 1990 [Salvini’s League party, formerly known as ‘Northern League’),” she added.
Earlier, Salvini said in an interview with The Washington Post that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was legal. According to him, the illegality of holding a referendum on the peninsula is a “point of view,” and 90% of the population voted “for the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation.”
When asked that kind of referendum it was with Russian soldiers there, Salvini replied: “Compare it to the fake revolution in Ukraine, which was a pseudo-revolution funded by foreign powers – similar to the Arab Spring revolutions. There are some historically Russian zones with Russian culture and traditions which legitimately belong to the Russian Federation.”
None of the parties gained a significant majority at the parliamentary elections held in Italy in early March this year, but the center-right coalition led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi garnered more than 37% of the vote, half of which was given to the Eurosceptic party Northern League.
