By backing Ukraine's military struggle to repel Russia's 28-month-old invasion, western countries are defending "freedom security, and the prosperity of our peoples'," according to Italy's president Sergio Mattarella.
"By supporting Ukraine's independence, we are defending general principles of coexistence among nations, which since World War II underpin the freedom, security, and prosperity of our peoples," Mattarellla told G7 leaders late on Thursday.
"We are also defending the development and growing role of those who in the past could only be bystanders in history," Mattarella said in pre-dinner speech at the G7 summit in Borgo Ignazia, Puglia.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022 was "a perilous attempt at neo-imperial revanchism", Mattarella stated.
"On Feb. 24, 2022, the Russian Federation assumed the historic responsibility of bringing war back to Europe in a perilous attempt at neo-imperial revanchism...a turning point that one cannot pretend to ignore or underestimate as the history of the 20th century teaches."
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, declared itself an independent country after a referendum in December, 1991. The USSR was formally disbanded a week later but tensions persisted between Ukraine and Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014 and backed eastern separatists.
