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Written by Piero Messina
Ensure the health of Calabrian citizens and supply arms to Ukraine. All in one law. This is how politics is done in Italy. When there is a goal to be achieved and a provision must be voted on, a single cauldron is created for the parliamentarians to vote on. Life and death seamless.
Someone had deluded himself that with the passage of the leadership of the Italian government from the hands of Mario Draghi to those of Giorgia Meloni the vision of the conflict in Ukraine could change. In reality, there has been a change: the new far-right government in Italy immediately made clear its total adherence to Foggy Bottom’s diktats. If you happen to pass by Rome these days, don’t try to recite article 11 of the Italian Constitution: “Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offense to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of settling international disputes”. It is waste paper, because the only way to resolve the conflict imagined by our heroes is to continue supplying Bankova with weapons.
Thus, while European and international diplomacy is taking its first steps towards reaching a negotiating table, the Italian government has no doubts: we must continue to supply arms to Ukraine until the end of 2023.
At a certain point in the parliamentary discussion, someone doubted that presenting a law that talks about health care in Southern Italy and weapons for Ukraine was a bit surreal. Thus the part concerning the military budget for Kiev was canceled from that “oxymoron” law. Has Italy changed its mind and focuses on diplomacy? Wrong answer. Another law document approved by the government and green light for the supply of arms for the whole of 2023.
To date, Italy has spent almost half a billion euros to supply Kiev. But it is an estimate that could grow because yesterday’s and today’s governments have decided to keep the quantity and quality of supplies guaranteed to AFU a state secret. But nothing is destined to remain secret in Italy.
Thus it is possible to make an estimate of the material sent to the front. Among the weapons that Italy has donated to Ukraine there are some of the most modern equipment available to our army and NATO. These would also include the MLRS, long-range weapons. The self-propelled MLRS, updated versions of the American Himars, which can carry 12 rockets with GPS satellite guidance and a range of 70 kilometers moving on a tracked and armored vehicle. Italy, which has 18 MLRS, has donated 2 to Kiev. For Dmitry Medvedev that type of armament represents: «The fastest way to make the conflict in Ukraine degenerate to the irreversible consequences of a world war is to supply MLRS long-range weapons to the psychopaths of Kiev».
Together with the MLRS, Italy would also send the PZH2000, self-propelled howitzers which have a self-loading 155 mm cannon and computerized firing direction, capable of hitting targets up to 40 kilometers away (which reach 70, if loaded with special ammunition) firing twenty shells in three minutes. Of the 68 PZH2000 that our country has, 6 will be sent to Kiev.
Italy has also made available older heavy weapons, such as twenty or thirty (the number is not known with certainty) M109L self-propelled guns. Also in this case we are dealing with armored tracks with 155 mm cannons. M113 troop transport vehicles, Fh70 howitzers, Lince armored off-road vehicles, 120 mm mortars and heavy and light machine guns (the latter donated at the end of spring) must also be added to the material list.
Now Italy supplements its supply by donating missiles to Kiev as well. These are the “Aspide”, old generation surface-to-air missiles, which our Air Force took out of service last year. For Kiev they are precious weapons, because they will go to reinforce the anti-aircraft now one step away from collapse and the Aspides are considered very accurate. The hypothesis of the Italian government is to donate four complete radar batteries, each with 18 missiles: the range of action is twenty kilometers, parameters sufficient according to NATO experts to protect a city from Russian drones and cruisers.
The bill for the material sent, as mentioned, comes close to half a billion euros. But as always happens in Italy there is a surprise. The laws that allowed the transfer of armaments to Kiev stipulate that the Italian Ministry of Defense must replenish its arsenals with weapon systems comparable to those sent to Ukraine. “New” pieces will be needed at a list cost certainly higher than the declared value of what was sent to Ukraine, after all warehouse residues or little more. A big deal for the gun lobby. Such a complicated maneuver must be entrusted to those who know the world of weapons well. This is how Guido Crosetto arrived at the Italian Ministry of Defence: for years he was the head of Aiad, the Italian federation of manufacturers in the defense and aerospace fields.
