Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been recorded on a leaked audio revealing that Ukraine provoked Russia into launching its special military operation in the country.
In the audio clip published by the La Presse agency last Wednesday, Berlusconi can be heard defending his Putin and saying that Zelenskiy provoked Moscow’s invasion by “tripling the attacks” against the Russian-backed separatists in Donbas.
The former Prime Minister, who is a member of the new government formed in Italy under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni, states he would rather not say what he truly thinks of Ukranian president Zelensky.
Berlusconi explained:
“The Republics of the Donbas eventually sent a delegation to Moscow and told Putin: ‘Please, defend us!’,” Berlusconi said. “Putin was against any initiative but he was under a big pressure from the Russian people and so he invented this special operation: the plan was that his troops had to enter Ukraine, overthrow Zelenskiy and replace him with a government formed by a Ukrainian minority, formed by honest, sensible people.’’
He continued that the Russian military was “faced with a situation Putin could not have predicted, of resistance from the Ukrainians who started receiving money and weapons from the west. And the special operation became a 200-year war.”
The former PM, who was previously recorded as saying he was one of the Russian leader’s top five friends, said he can’t see how Putin and Zelenskiy can sit at a negotiating table.
“Because there’s no possible way. Zelenskiy, in my view … forget about it, I can’t say,” the recording went on.
“There are no real leaders in the West”, continued Berlusconi. “I can make you smile, the only true leader is me.”
The leak of this audio has jeopardised the brand-new populist coalition led by Georgia Meloni and brought into question the role of Western intelligence agencies in manipulating political situations in supposedly allied countries.
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