Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, founder and head of the Forza Italia party, caused a scandal just before Italian parliamentary elections next Sunday with remarks about the war in Ukraine. Berlusconi, who has been a friend of the Russian president for many years, said on Rai public television on Thursday night that Vladimir Putin was one of the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass, who “put him in a really difficult and dramatic situation” with their reports. . of continued Ukrainian attacks, brought pressure to invade Ukraine by the Russian media and, eventually, “by its people and its ministers”. The aim of the “special operation” finally ordered by Putin – as Berlusconi literally put it – was “to reach Kyiv within a week, replace the Zelenskyy government with a government of decent people and withdraw again in another week”.
Matthias Rub
Political correspondent for Italy, Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.
Instead, Russian troops in Ukraine “met unexpected resistance, which was reinforced by every imaginable weapon from the West”. He also did not understand why Russian troops were “spread throughout Ukraine”; instead, in his view, they should be “just around Kyiv,” Berlusconi said.
“We are beyond imaginable”
Social Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta described Berlusconi’s remarks as “scandalous” and continued: “We are beyond imaginable with this. There are no words to comment on this. If the rightists win Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Putin will be the first to be happy.” The Social Democrats, for their part, are “always against the aggressor,” said Letta. Berlusconi’s party is running in an electoral alliance along with the right-wing populist League led by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and the post-party. -Fascist Brothers of Italy by Giorgia Meloni With a good twenty percentage points ahead of the Social Democrats, the center-right alliance is the favorite to win Sunday’s elections in the latest polls.
Lega chief Salvini declined to comment on remarks by his ally Berlusconi on Friday. “I don’t want to interpret that,” Salvini said on the radio. “I’m just saying that we will do everything we can to end the war when we are in government.” Putin’s positive attitude, but now there can be no justification for an invasion, Salvini said. Giorgia Meloni, who has supported the departure of Prime Minister Mario Draghi in Ukraine’s politics since the beginning of the war and supported the delivery of weapons to Kyiv and sanctions against Moscow, initially declined to comment on Berlusconi’s remarks.
Published/Updated:
Published/Updated:
Published/Updated:
Berlusconi tried to smooth things over on Friday. On Twitter, he complained that his statements were “taken out of context”. Anyone who watches Rai’s entire interview recognizes his “long-known stance” on the issue: “Aggression against Ukraine is unacceptable and unjustifiable.” .