Italy's Meloni pledges support for Ukraine after meeting with Zelenskiy

CERNOBBIO, Italy (Reuters) -Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pledged unwavering support for Ukraine after a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday, in which they discussed Kyiv's plans to end the war with Russia and reconstruction efforts.

The conservative prime minister met the Ukrainian leader on the sidelines of the annual TEHA business forum on Lake Como, as Italy prepares to host next year's conference on Ukraine's reconstruction.

Meloni told the forum Italy would never backtrack on its support for Ukraine. The decision was not just morally right but also in the national interest given it was aimed at safeguarding rules designed to protect a country's national integrity, she said.

"It's a choice that won't change," she said, adding that China and India also had a "role to play" in resolving the conflict. "The only thing that cannot happen is to think that the conflict can be solved by abandoning Ukraine."

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday called on China to stop supporting Russia's war in Ukraine and said Beijing's assistance has been a significant factor in the continuation of the war. China has previously described similar statements made by NATO as 'malicious' and biased.

Meloni described the idea that the outcome of the war had already been decided as "Russian propaganda", adding that Western support had made eventual peace talks a possibility.

"With an invasion, you don't have peace talks, you don't need a negotiating table. The need for it emerges, if anything, with a stalemate ... the stalemate that we have contributed to creating," she said.

Speaking at the forum on Friday, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine needed the full support of its allies to be in a strong position for any future negotiations with Russia.

In a post on X on Saturday, he said he had discussed his peace plans with Meloni, as well as his reconstruction strategy with a focus on Ukraine's energy system.

Before meeting the Italian PM, the Ukrainian leader dined with dozens of Italian business leaders ahead of next year's reconstruction conference.

At the dinner, Zelenskiy said firms would be able to bid for contracts and a digital platform for the reconstruction event would be launched in coming months.

(Reporting by Valentina Za and Elvira Pollina in Cernobbio and Max Hunder in Kyiv; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Ana Nicolaci da Costa)