Arms decree to Ukraine: no news from the Meloni government

^{Update of 9 February, 5 pm – In a first version of this article we erroneously reported that the sixth arms decree had not yet been signed, which instead had already happened. We apologize to the readers and interested parties for the error}

The decree

“The Aid decree was sent to Copasir and published in the Official Gazette. It does not need other parliamentary passages”. The Defense Minister said, Guido Crosettoduring the press conference at Villa Madama at the end of the bilateral meeting of the foreign and defense ministers of Italy and the United Kingdom.

“This will be the first decree to contain only defensive weapons and civilian aid. The minister is working for peace,” Crosetto wrote in a tweet on January 26. “No artillery weapons are foreseen”, he later specified. In the meantime, the joint Italian-French work to supply the Ukrainians with the Samp-T anti-aircraft defense system seems to have been unblocked: the delivery will take place “in the spring of 2023”, the two governments announced. The goal is “to allow Ukraine to defend itself against attacks by Russian drones, missiles and aircraft”. But this is a separate match from the sixth weapon pack.