Did Giorgia Meloni say, “If Russia doesn’t agree to Ukraine’s terms, we will force them to surrender”?

In mid-June 2024, a phrase from the Italian Prime Minister, which she allegedly said during a peace summit in Switzerland, spread across social networks and the media. We found out whether Meloni made such a statement.

June 16 Ukrainian And Russian The media, as well as Telegram channels, spread the news about Giorgi Meloni’s ultimatum statement. Many channels also provide an excerpt from the speech of the head of the Italian government with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian. The translator says the following: “Defending Ukraine means joining the efforts of the international community to protect Ukraine. If Russia does not agree [to the peace terms proposed by Ukraine], we will force it to surrender. And we need to set minimum conditions for this discussion.” A fragment of this quote was shared, in particular, by Telegram channels “The world today with "Yuri Podolyak""(1.7 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ax Live"(892,000), "Insider UA" (390,000) and "Putin on Telegram"(209,000).

June 15–16 at the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock passed The Peace Summit is an event at which the leaders of several dozen states discussed individual points of the “peace formula” proposed by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The forum was attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, US Vice President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and many other high-ranking guests, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

In a short video distributed by Telegram channels, the slogan of the peace summit is visible in the upper right corner: #PathForPeace. Official broadcast The events with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian were hosted on Facebook by the Office of the President of Ukraine. Meloni spoke on the second day of the summit, June 16. The excerpt, which was distributed across the media and social networks, begins in the broadcast at around 11:00, respectively, the recording itself is genuine.

It remains to establish what exactly Meloni said in the original. The Prime Minister’s speech was published in full on the official YouTube channel of the Italian government, without translation into Italian—the politician spoke English at the summit.

In the original Meloni says:

Defending Ukraine means defending that system of rules that holds the International Community together and protect every nation. If Ukraine had not been able to count on our support and therefore would have been forced to surrender, today we would not be here to discuss the minimum conditions for a negotiation, we would be just discussing the invasion of a sovereign state.

This statement translates as follows:

Defending Ukraine means defending the system of rules that unites the international community and protects every nation. If Ukraine could not count on our support and was therefore forced to surrender, we would not be here today discussing the minimum terms of negotiations, we would only be discussing an invasion of a sovereign state.

That is, Meloni did not say that Russia should surrender, she only spoke about the importance of international support, largely thanks to which Ukraine is still resisting the Russian invasion and is able to discuss the terms of a future peace agreement with its partners.

Thus, an error was made in the simultaneous translation during the live broadcast of the summit, which completely distorted the meaning of the Italian Prime Minister’s statement. Many Ukrainian media, having read the original entry, later corrected their news, indicating to the inconsistency of the translation with Meloni's words. In turn, some Russian Media And politicians believed that the mistake was made intentionally.

Cover photo: European Commission Audiovisual Service

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?