Did Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni say, "If Russia does not agree to the terms of the peace summit, we will force it to surrender"? No, that's not true: The comments attributed to her come from a falsified Russian translation of what she said in English at the Ukraine Peace Summit held in Switzerland in June 2024. While Meloni has strongly criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine, no credible sources report her saying that Russia should be forced to surrender.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) published by SprinterFamily on June 16, 2024. The post's caption, which includes a misspelling of the prime minister's first name, says:
'If Russia does not agree to the terms of the peace summit, we will force it to surrender' - Italian Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Jun 17 15:18:15 2024 UTC)
The video
The 24-second clip begins with Meloni talking in English -- saying "Defending Ukraine means" -- but then the audio quickly switches to Russian, as if a simultaneous translation was taking place. It wasn't.
Lead Stories recorded the Russian audio with Google Translate (archived here) and translated it into English. This is what it said (emphasis ours):
To protect Ukraine means to protect the system of rules in the world. We can unite all efforts to protect Ukraine. If Russia does not agree to the conditions, we will force them to surrender. We need to establish conditions for this discussion. Peace in Ukraine does not mean that Ukraine should surrender, as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin believes. It will not happen.
Lead Stories also translated the Russian transcript through DeepL (archived here) and came up with a similar English translation. It said (emphasis ours):
Defending Ukraine means defending the system of rules in the world. We can unite all efforts to defend Ukraine. If Russia does not agree to the terms, we will force them to surrender. We need to set the terms for this discussion. Peace in Ukraine does not mean that Ukraine should surrender, as Putin thinks. It will not be so.
While both translations of the Russian in the video appear to generally support the claim made in the social media post, Meloni never said those words.
Italian government
The Italian government's website (archived here) posted the full-length video of her comments at the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland, as well as the complete English transcript. Meloni spoke entirely in English during her remarks on June 16, 2024.
Matching with the "Defending Ukraine means" quote from the video before it switches to Russian (29-second mark in the original), here's what Meloni actually said:
Defending Ukraine means defending that system of rules that holds the international community together and protects every Nation. If Ukraine had not been able to count on our support and therefore would have been forced to surrender, today we would not be here to discuss the minimum conditions for a negotiation. We would be just discussing the invasion of a sovereign state and we can all imagine with what consequences.
You can listen to the same section of the original video here:
Additionally, nowhere during the nearly four-minute video does the Italian prime minister suggest Russia must be forced to surrender. Meloni only mentions the word one other time during her comments when she says:
Peace does not mean surrender - as President Putin seems to suggest with his latest declarations. It does not. Confusing peace with subjugation would set a dangerous precedent for everyone.
On June 14, 2024, Putin insisted that Ukraine must cede control of four regions, partially occupied by Russian forces, and abandon its ambitions to join NATO. These demands were set as conditions for Russia to "immediately" cease hostilities and commence peace negotiations.
Google search
Lead Stories did searches using keywords on Google News, visible here (archived here), and found no credible documents or reporting as of June 17, 2024, to corroborate the claim that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said, "If Russia does not agree to the terms of the peace summit, we will force it to surrender."
Read more
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the war in Ukraine can be found here.
