Translated from Italian.
Silvio Berlusconi spoke freely about the Ukrainian war in a meeting of the Forza Italia assembly in the Chamber. The meeting was recorded in an audio file obtained exclusively by LaPresse. Berlusconi states:
“I do not see how Putin and Zelensky can sit at a mediation table. Because there is no possible way. Zelensky, in my opinion… forget it, I can’t say… ”.
Do you know how the thing happened with Russia? On this too I beg you, preserve the utmost confidentiality. Do you promise? (…) It went like this: 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 damns this treaty to hell [less dramatic translation: violates the treaty] 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. Zelensky arrives, triples the attacks on the two republics. The dead become (inaudible). Desperate, the two republics (inaudible) send a delegation to Moscow (inaudible) 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, resists, undergoes strong pressure from all over Russia.
Putin then decided to put together a special operation: the troops would enter Ukraine, reach Kiev in a week, overthrow the government in office, Zelensky, etc., and set up a government already chosen by the Ukrainian minority of good and common sense people. The troops would then leave a week later.
But when Putin entered Ukraine he was faced with an unexpected and unpredictable situation of resistance from the Ukrainians, who had begun receiving money and weapons from the West on Day 3. So the war, instead of being a two-week operation, has become a two-hundred-and-one-year war. So, this is the situation of the war in Ukraine.
Another risk, another danger, that we all have is: 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 true leader is me. (Corruptionledger calls delusion on this last claim.)
Berlusconi goes on to explain that if Zelensky had pledged to stop attacking the republics of Donbass, “the war would be over.” He adds that the war waged in Ukraine is “a massacre” that will not end without “strong intervention”
Source with audio file: LaPresse.it