ROME, December 15. /TASS/. The word "weapon" is missing from Italy's latest resolution on Ukraine, replaced by the phrase "multidirectional assistance," according to Il Messaggero.
The document must be approved in parliament ahead of tomorrow’s EU summit.
Il Messaggero says that this "wordplay" is a tactic aimed at getting the bill passed — one of the ruling parties, the League, opposes further supply of weapons.
According to the newspaper, the government has also "encrypted" certain obstacles to approving a form of "reparation loan" to Kiev at the expense of frozen Russian assets. Rome demands "the most reliable financing formula from the point of view of legality, which would provide for a clear framework for spending these funds with fair benefits and with the full involvement of the European industry."
The resolution says Italy "will carefully assess its impact of the national financial system."
On December 3, the European Commission presented its plan to expropriate Russian sovereign assets blocked in Europe under the guise of a "reparation loan" scheme to Kiev. It proposed to appropriate all the 210 billion euros frozen in the EU, of which 185 billion are deposited at the Euroclear depository in Belgium. There is no information about the location of the remaining 25 billion euros. The EC intends to take 165 billion euros under its control to finance Ukraine in 2026-2027, and allocate another 45 billion euros to cover the loans already granted to Kiev from 2024 covered by interest on income from reinvestment of Russian assets.
At a vote in the EU Council on December 12, several countries, including Italy, supported the indefinite freezing of Russia's assets, but warned it did not mean they would support their expropriation, which requires a reliable legal framework.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously said that confiscation of Russian assets being discussed in Europe would be an act of theft. Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko told TASS that the country's leadership has already been presented with options for responding to the possible seizure of Russian assets by Western countries. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow would not leave such actions unanswered.