It’s not really very surprising given that:
1. Meloni (unlike Salvini or Berlusconi) doesn’t really have significant ties to Putin.
2. The Ukrainian political scene is very right-wing, as is the case in most ex-Warsaw Pact and Soviet countries, where centre-left as it would be recognised in the English speaking world and Western Europe is basically defunct.
3. The addition of Ukraine would further stymie centralisation efforts within the EU (which, of course, is what happened with the entry of the ex-Warsaw Pact nations, which was one of the reasons why the British pushed so hard for expansion back when we were in the EU, even though that ended up boomeranging spectacularly on the domestic side of the equation), which I assume is something that she would be favourable to (Ukraine would likely be an ally of her government, the Poles and the Hungarians in an “anti-Federalist bloc”).
The first is obvious, though it might be worth looking into *why* that is the case.
Second, agreed on the whole.
Third, this may though be a bit too "seven dimensional chess" for a lot of rightwingers.
I mean, with regards number three, coordination is an obvious issue (Poland may well have a liberal and pro-EU government by the end of the year). Nonetheless, the bigger the EU gets and the more conflicting interests that it includes inside it, the harder integration becomes (Walter Hallstein, he of the “Empty Chair Crisis” identified this problem early on with the his ‘intensity versus extensity’ dilemma), which I assume is something that Meloni wants to see happen, since she is a nationalist. A poor, nationalistic and right-wing (the direction of Ukrainian economic policy in the last ten years has decidedly been in favour of heavy liberalisation) Ukraine is an obvious partner for a Meloni led Italian government in any effort to tip the scales against France and Germany (who, in any case, don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot re integration).
