Ukraine’s Former Advisor to Internal Affairs Minister Anton Gerashchenko published a post on X in which he admitted that a Ukrainian interpreter had misinterpreted the words of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The Italian government website published the text of Meloni’s speech at the Summit on Peace in Ukraine. The statement reads as follows:
“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.”
However, Meloni’s Ukrainian simultaneous interpreter rendered her statement in the following way:
Defending Ukraine means uniting all the efforts of the international community to defend Ukraine. If Russia does not agree to this, we will force them to surrender. And we need to set the minimum conditions for this discussion.
Gerashchenko stated that the interpreter “must have been translating from the heart and has put the deepest wish of all Ukrainians into Prime Minister Meloni’s statement.”
Previously, translations of Ukrainian politicians also caused confusion, which could lead to discontent and escalation. For instance, in 2022, an interpreter mistranslated the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the latter allegedly called for “preventive strikes against Russia.”
On 6 October 2022, speaking in Ukrainian via video link at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, Zelensky allegedly stated that NATO should “reconsider how it uses its pressure” and “make it impossible for Russia to use nuclear weapons”. His spokesman later claimed that the president “was talking about the period before 24 February [2022]. Then it was necessary to apply preventive measures to prevent Russia from launching a war.”
The distortion of Meloni’s speech took place against the backdrop of a peace conference at the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock on 15-16 June. However, world leaders did not achieve tangible results, with some participants refusing to sign the final document. 80 out of 91 attendees supported the outcome paper.
