Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, saying he was beginning to believe it was “just a waste of time” to work with his Moscow counterpart to invade Ukraine. “I am beginning to believe that these people are right when they say, ‘It is useless to talk to him, it is just a waste of time,’” Draghi told the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. Draghi spoke by telephone with Putin on March 30 and said the Russian leader had discussed the possibility of Italy buying Russian gas in rubles. The country is said to import 40% of its gas from Russia. The Prime Minister said that both sides agreed to talk again within the next few days. “Then came the horror of Butsa,” Draghi said, referring to the Kiev suburb where authorities uncovered mass killings of civilians after Russian forces left the area. The prime minister said he believed French President Emmanuel Macron, who had sought to be at the forefront of EU negotiations with Putin, was “right to try every possible dialogue”. “But I have the impression that the horror of the war with its massacre, with what they did to children and women, is completely independent of the words and phone calls that are made,” Draghi continued. “So far, Putin’s goal has not been to seek peace, but to try to eliminate the Ukrainian resistance, to occupy the country and to entrust it to a friendly government,” he added. Asked if he shared President Joe Biden’s characterization of Bucha’s assassination as a “war crime,” Draghi said, “How do we call Bucha’s horror, if not war crimes?” However, the Italian prime minister said terms such as “genocide” and “war crimes” had “precise legal meaning”. “There will be a way and a time to check which words best fit the inhumane acts of the Russian army,” Draghi said. Draghi, the former head of the EU Central Bank, was appointed prime minister in February 2021 following the resignation of his predecessor, Giuseppe Conte, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the severe economic downturn. In recent weeks, Draghi has sought to diversify Italy’s gas imports through deals across Africa and encouraged European nations to unite and reduce Russian gas prices. “The European Union’s market power over Moscow is a weapon that must be used,” he told Il Corriere della Sera. “A cap on the price of gas reduces the funding we give Russia every day.”