(Adnkronos) – Western nations must maintain a united stance on Russia’s more-than-four-year-old occupation of Ukraine and be determined to get Moscow to take part in negotiations to end to the conflict, Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday.
“’Our unity and resolve must have the aim of bringing Russia to the negotiating table and ensuring it does not lay claim to territories it has not even conquered,” Tajani stated.
Tajani was speaking during a visit to the Kiev suburb of Bucha to mark the fourth anniversary of the massacre in which Ukraine’s authorities say over 1,400 people were slain by Russian forces at the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of the country.
“There has not even been a major military success; they (Russian forces) have conquered less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea,” said Tajani, who is due to attend an informal European Union foreign ministers’ meeting in Kiev.
“A just peace is the goal to which we are all committed,” Tajani underlined.
“For this reason, we must keep up the pressure on (Russia’s president Vladimir) Putin so that he sees sense and understands that an attack on a neighbouring country is unacceptable,” Tajani added.
