After four months of silence, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has once again raised his voice against Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, once again embarrassing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has had to recall Italian support for the cause ukrainian. In a few words to the media after voting in the regional elections in Lombardy, Berlusconi assured that if he were prime minister he would never have gone to speak with the Ukrainian leader, “because we are witnessing the devastation of his country and the massacre of his soldiers and civilians.
“Me talk to Zelensky? If he had been prime minister he would never have gone, ”he said. “It was enough for him to stop attacking the two republics of Donbass and this would never have happened, so I consider that this man’s behavior is very, very negative,” he insisted.
His words forced the Italian government, of which Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia, is a minority partner, to muddle through to clarify that “the government’s support for Ukraine is firm and convinced”, “as clearly foreseen in the program and as confirmed by all the parliamentary votes of the majority that supports it”. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Berlusconi’s number two in Forza Italia, also tweeted that the formation has always positioned itself in favor of the independence of Ukraine, Europe, NATO and the West. “In all venues we will continue to vote with our government allies respecting our program,” he pointed out.
It is not the first time that Berlusconi blames Zelenski for the war in Ukraine. The former prime minister already caused trouble for the right-wing coalition by leaking a conversation with his parliamentarians when he returned to the Senate in October, in which he accused the Ukrainian of the conflict for having “triplicated the attacks” in the Donbass since his arrival in government. In his opinion, Vladimir Putin was “opposed to any initiative”, but after enormous pressure in Russia, he decided to “invent a special operation” to replace the Zelensky executive with “decent and common sense” people.
The revelations came a day after a first part of this private talk was made public in which the tycoon boasted of having resumed relations with Putin, who gave him twenty bottles of vodka” and a “sweet letter” for his 86th birthday. , to which he responded with Lambrusco and another gentle letter. He also boasted that the Kremlin leader considers him “the first of five true friends of his.”