Italy’s PM assures “firm support” for Ukraine after Berlusconi’s claims

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni confirmed her government's "firm support" for Ukraine after former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made critical claims against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ansa reports that Meloni's office said on Sunday that the Italian government "firmly and confidently" supports Ukraine.

Berlusconi, commenting on the meeting between Meloni and Zelensky on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels, said that if he were still the prime minister, he would not have met with Zelensky.

If Zelensky had stopped "attacking" two regions in the east of Ukraine in Donbas, the russian attack on Ukraine would not have happened at all, the 86-year-old politician claimed. "That is why I assess the behavior of this gentleman very, very negatively," Berlusconi continued.

Berlusconi, who served as Italy's prime minister three times from 1994 to 2011 and whose Forward Italy party is currently part of Meloni's government, has for years called russian president vladimir putin a good friend.

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Silvio Berlusconi believes that Ukraine can go to negotiations with russia if the west stops helping it with weapons and instead offer only help in reconstruction.

This is not the first scandalous statement by the leader of "Forward, Italy!" about russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking on the air of the Rai TV channel on the eve of the parliamentary elections, Berlusconi said that "The russian people pushed putin, the party, and his ministers" to go to war against Ukraine, and the goal of the invasion was supposedly aimed at forming a government of "decent people" in Kyiv.

Later, the Italian mass media published an audio recording of Berlusconi's meeting with fellow party members, where he directly blamed Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for the war.