Until the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi stuck to his plan for a diplomatic mission to Moscow.

For a solid week, Draghi had been waiting for Vladimir Putin's promise of an appointment, which was never to come.

On Wednesday afternoon, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio took over from Rome to cancel the trip.

Hours later, the invasion of Ukraine began.

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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The canceled Moscow mission and the Russian invasion of Ukraine reveal a misjudgment of Draghi's security policy and also his personal failure.

In a speech in the House of Representatives on January 15, Draghi assured that Putin's troop deployment did not indicate an impending invasion of Ukraine, but rather showed that Russia wanted to be "part of the decision-making process".

Since taking office in February 2021, Draghi had held numerous telephone calls with Putin – on four occasions since August alone – in an attempt to build a relationship of trust with the Russian president.

Berlusconi's male friendship with Putin

The tradition of Rome's special relationship with Moscow dates back to the Cold War and survived after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin cultivated a male friendship in which geostrategic and personal motives came together.

Like Berlusconi, later heads of government in Rome repeatedly spoke out against Western sanctions against Moscow after military actions in the successor states of the Soviet Union.

At the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, Moscow sent relief supplies and medical facilities to the particularly affected northern Italian region of Lombardy as a sign of friendship with Italy.

In the face of Russia's major offensive in Ukraine, Rome is now trying to avoid any semblance of ambiguity.

On Thursday, Draghi condemned the Russian attack as an "unjustifiable attack" to which Rome, together with its allies in the EU, NATO and the G7, will "react with all determination".

All parties in the governing coalition agreed in condemning Moscow.

Enrico Letta, leader of the Social Democrats, said that Italy, together with its allies, would "react unequivocally to this unprecedented challenge in the name of freedom and democracy".

Deputy leader Antonio Tajani condemned the Russian military operation on behalf of Berlusconi's Christian Democratic party Forza Italia.

There was no express condemnation of the attack from party founder Berlusconi.

Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the left-liberal small party Italia Viva described the Russian attack as unacceptable.

Salvini and Meloni also condemn the attack on Ukraine

Even former interior minister Matteo Salvini of the right-wing nationalist League, who in the past has repeatedly expressed himself as a great admirer of Putin, condemned "with all determination" Moscow's military aggression and expressed Prime Minister Draghi's full support "for a joint response by the allies". .

And even Giorgia Meloni of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, the only opposition force of any size, condemned the "large-scale war attack by Putin's Russia on Ukraine."

The West and the international community are united in "taking all necessary measures to support Kiev," Meloni wrote.

Because of the close economic and trade relations with Russia, Italy will feel the burden of the sanctions more severely than almost any other country in Europe.

In the first eleven months of last year, Italian companies exported goods and services worth a good seven billion euros to Russia.

Italy's imports amounted to almost 13 billion euros, the majority of which were gas and oil imports.

Soaring energy prices are already putting pressure on Italian economic growth.