Over 20 years of feeling. And a relationship that, since that first meeting at the G8 in Genoa in the now distant 2001, never seems to have stopped. Despite some disappointments, such as the phone gone silent when Berlusconi tried to call Putin after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But true friends are not forgotten, and they find themselves, as the Knight said, announcing two days ago in an audio published by Lapresse to his deputies that he had “reconnected” with Putin who would have called him “the first of his 5 real friends », sending him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday.
Complete with a “very sweet” letter, immediately repaid with an equally “sweet” letter and a few cases of Lambrusco. To the amazement of international politics. Europe’s line on Ukraine is clear, there is no discussion and it unites all the Community institutions. The words of Silvio Berlusconi on Vladimir Putin, even before the new audio on the former premier’s comments on Volodymyr Zelensky, in a matter of hours have become an international case.
Berlusconi: Zelensky? I don’t say what I think
In fact, yesterday the sequel was staged. In the afternoon, LaPresse released a new audio (the second part of the audio released the day before), in which the Forza Italia leader used contemptuous words for Ukrainian President Zelensky. «I don’t see how Putin and Zelensky can join a mediation table. Because there is no possible way. Zelensky, in my opinion … forget it, I can’t say … ».
Berlusconi’s reconstruction
The reconstruction of the conflict by the Knight is “revisionist” and coincides with the version of Moscow. Here it is, in the words of the person concerned. «In 2014 in Minsk, Belarus, an agreement was signed between Ukraine and the two newly formed republics of Donbass for a peace agreement without anyone attacking the other. Ukraine throws this treaty to hell a year later and begins attacking the borders of the two republics. The two republics suffer casualties among the military who arrive, I am told, at 5-6-7 thousand dead ».
The accusation: Zelensky tripled attacks on Donbass
Zelensky is accused of having tripled the attacks on the two republics ». And then, desperate, the two republics (…) send a delegation to Moscow (…) and finally manage to talk to Putin. They say: “Vladimir we don’t know what to do, you defend us.” «He – he adds – is opposed to any initiative, he resists, undergoes strong pressure from all over Russia. And then he decides to invent a special operation: the troops had to enter Ukraine, reach Kiev in a week, overthrow the government in office, Zelensky, and put a government already chosen by the Ukrainian minority of good and common sense people, a another week to go back ». But the army that entered Ukraine «was faced with an unforeseen and unpredictable situation of resistance from the Ukrainians, who began to receive money and weapons from the West on the third day. And the war, instead of being a two-week operation, has become a war of two-hundred-and-a-half years ».