Audio against Zelensky, it's storm on Berlusconi- Corriere.it

ROME
- Do you know how the Russia thing happened? Also on this I beg you, for, the utmost confidentiality. Do you promise ?. The words are from Silvio Berlusconi, the audience that of the blue parliamentarians, who promise and applaud.

Not the first time, but this time exploding. Zelensky, forget it, I can't say it .... The longer audio, difficult to deny, appears clear in the reconstruction. Zelensky has tripled the dead…. Words that come in the middle of the formation of the government, on the eve of the start of the consultations. There are no more leaders in the world, even in the United States….

the second part of the speech made to the parliamentarians, an audio that someone recorded and passed to the news agency LaPresse. Two days ago the first episode with those declarations on relations with Putin, on a very sweet exchange of letters, on the 20 bottles of vodka received as a gift from Moscow. But now the second arouses an infinite number of criticisms both in Italy and abroad, while it is also broadcast on Russian televisions.

This is how it went, Berlusconi's story begins: In 2014 in Minsk, Belarus, an agreement was signed between Ukraine and the two newly formed republics of Donbass for a peace agreement with no one 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 deaths. Zelensky arrives, triples the attacks on the two Republics. 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 is opposed to any initiative, he resists, undergoes strong pressure from all over Russia. And then he decides to invent a special operation.

a reconstruction that fully coincides with the theses of the Kremlin, which traces the responsibility for the conflict into the moves of the Ukrainian government. Berlusconi continues: The troops had to enter Ukraine, reach Kiev in a week, overthrow the government in office, Zelensky, etc. Instead, he entered Ukraine and found himself faced with an unexpected situation of resistance from the Ukrainians, who from the third day they began to receive money and weapons from the West. And the war, instead of being a two-week operation, became a two-hundred-and-a-half-year war.

In short: a Putin opposed to any initiative, almost forced to invent the invasion in the face of Zelensky's attacks. And on Zelensky Berlusconi is also expressed in another point. I don't see how Putin and Zelensky can join a mediation table. P.erch there is no possible way. Zelensky, in my opinion ... forget it, I can't tell ... Without a loud intervention ... (disturbed audio, ed) ... the war does not end, he says.

In the past, a Door to doorBerlusconi had said that Putin wanted to replace the government in Kiev with a government of decent people. He later claimed to have been misinterpreted. But that's not all. There is also a last piece of the speech: What another risk: today, unfortunately, in the Western world, there are no leaders, there are none in Europe and the United States of America. I don't tell you the things I know but there are no real leaders. Can I make you smile? The only real leader is me.

Obviously, immediately after the diffusion of the audio, the reactions are many. In Forza Italia they defend Berlusconi, they point out that it was a speech without context, in which the Knight reported reconstructions of others, but that he did not make his own. Tomorrow I will be at the EPP summit to confirm the pro-Atlantic, pro-Atlantic position of full support for my Ukraine and Forza Italia. In all institutional offices our vote against the Russian invasion has never failed, Antonio Tajani, national coordinator of Forza Italia, tries to correct with a tweet.

Yet, for both Giuseppe Conte and Carlo Calenda, at this point an exponent of Forza Italia can no longer be the foreign minister: for the former premier Conte the topic will be put to Mattarella during the consultations. And even for Enrico Letta these are very serious words, incompatible with our international position, the government is being born under the sign of the worst ambiguity. And at the end of the evening a note from Berlusconi himself also arrives: Nobody can question my Atlanticism, my constant reference to the West as a system of values, I was simply referring to opinions ....