European Commission spokesman Eric
Mamer said Friday the EC had no comment on ex-premier Silvio
Berlusconi's assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin was
pushed into the Ukraine war by the Russian people and media and
expected to replace the Zelensky administration with "decent
people".
The EU's spokesman on foreign affairs, Peter Stano, nodded with
a smile after Mamer's remark.
Berlusconi, three-time ex-premier and centre-right Forza Italia
(FI) party leader, told Italian TV Thursday that Putin was
pushed by pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass and the Russian
media and people into war with its neighbour.
The billionaire media magnate and old friend of Putin's, who has
condemned the war, told Porta a Porta that the separatists came
to Moscow and told the media that Ukraine's attacks had reaped
16,000 deaths and Putin was doing nothing to defend them.
"Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by
his ministers to invent this special operation", said the
86-year-old mogul turned politician.
"So the troops were supposed to enter, reach Kiyiv in a week,
replace the Zelensky government with decent people and a week
later come back.
"Instead they found an unexpected resistance which was then fed
by arms of all kind s form the West.
"The war has lasted more than 200 days, the situation has become
very difficult, I feel ill when I hear of the dead because I
have always believed that war is the greatest madness of all".
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