Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi predicted "prolonged violence with destruction that will continue" in Ukraine.
Draghi, who took office in February 2021, gave his first interview to a newspaper — the Corriere della Sera — since he took office.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal was to annihilate the Ukrainian resistance, to occupy the country and entrust it to a puppet government.
"I hoped until the last [moment] that he didn't [invade]," Draghi told the newspaper, Il Reformista reported. "We phoned President Putin before the war began. We parted with the understanding that we would speak again. A few weeks later, however, Putin launched the offensive.
"I tried to talk to him until the end. That said, the invasion did not surprise me — nearly 200,000 men in full war gear had been brought to the Ukrainian border. There were also precedents, what the Soviet Union had done in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia."
Draghi described his last phone call with Putin. He said he encouraged the Russian president to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but Putin insisted time wasn't "ripe."
"After that, he explained to me all about paying for gas in rubles, which had not yet been introduced at the time," Draghi told Corriere della Sera. "We said goodbye with a commitment to talk within a few days. Then came the horror of Bucha.
"I am beginning to think that those who say [you can't talk to Putin] are right: It is useless for you to talk to them; you are just wasting time."
Draghi assured that Italy will remain alongside Kyiv, and called the Ukrainian resistance "heroic." However, he predicted a long war and guaranteed that Europe and NATO did not want to get involved directly.
The Italian prime minister, more cautious then President Joe Biden, would not define the massacres in Ukraine as "genocide" or "war crimes" as "they have a precise legal meaning."
Italy has proposed putting a ceiling on the price of Russian gas.
"[It's] a way to strengthen sanctions and at the same time minimize the costs for us who impose them," Draghi said. "We no longer want to depend on Russian gas, because economic dependence must not become political subjection."
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