Italy | Silvio Berlusconi attacks Zelensky, the Prime Minister reframes him

(Rome) Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose party is part of Giorgia Meloni’s government coalition, launched an all-out attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, immediately drawing the wrath of the prime minister.

Asked about the meeting Thursday in Brussels between M^me Meloni and Mr. Zelensky, he replied, “Me, talk to Zelensky? If I had been President of the Council, I would never have gone there”.

He then set out his motives: “It was enough for him (Mr. Zelensky) to stop attacking the two autonomous republics of Donbass and all this would not have happened, therefore I judge this gentleman’s behavior very, very negatively”, he said when he had just voted for the regional elections in Lombardy.

Silvio Berlusconi, 86, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was in power, is not his first controversial statement on the conflict in Ukraine, even if he has been quieter since the victory in the September elections of the coalition bringing together his party Forza Italia, the League of Matteo Salvini and the formation Fratelli d’Italia of M^me Meloni.

In September, Mr. Berlusconi had caused an uproar by believing that Vladimir Putin had been “pushed” by his population and the pro-Russian forces of Donbass to invade Ukraine.

On Sunday, his new pro-Russian statements had barely made the front page of news sites when the government issued a statement to reaffirm Italy’s “firm support” for Ukraine.

“The support of the Italian government for Ukraine is firm and convinced, as clearly foreseen in the program and as confirmed by all the parliamentary votes of the majority supporting the executive,” he said.

M^me Meloni, who met face-to-face on Thursday in Brussels with Mr. Zelensky, discussed with him an upcoming visit to Kyiv, “being organized”.

The left opposition, through the voice of the senator of the Democratic Party (PD) Dario Parrini has also stepped up to criticize the “umpteenth pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine statements by Berlusconi”. “We are an absolute anomaly: neither Germany, nor France, nor Spain or Portugal have political leaders in their government majority with such delusional positions,” he lamented on Facebook.