Former prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi has responded to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s tirade against him, saying the Ukrainian leader doesn’t have a clue about him or his life story.
“What does this gentleman know about me? He knows nothing,” Berlusconi told Italian media.
“Contrary to what he says, I have known the horror of war. I was displaced together with my family,” Berlusconi added, referring to his experiences as a child in northern Italy during World War II, when his native Milan was subjected to brutal bombing by the Western Allies.
“That’s why I’m worried. And I am asking for an end to this conflict and work for peace, including because of the high risk of a nuclear escalation,” Berlusconi said.
During his meeting with Prime Minister Meloni, Zelensky attacked the 86-year-old Berluscnoi, claiming that his “house was never bombed with rockets,” that “tanks had never approached him,” and that “nobody killed his relatives.” Berlsuconi, according to Zelensky, “has never had to collect a suitcase at three o’clock in the morning to flee, thanks to his brotherly love for Russia.”
Berlosconi was born in Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy in 1936. During World War II, his native city of Milan was subjected to heavy bombardment by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force, with over 14,000 buildings destroyed and over 2,200 people killed. About 300,000 civilians were forced to flee the city, including six-year-old Berlusconi and his family. The politician has repeatedly recalled his memories of the war years in discussions with the media. “I will never forget how the Allies bombed Milan in 1943. I was six-and-a-half years old. Once, a bomb fell right onto our street – Volturno Street. After that, my parents decided to move to a small village north of Milan,” Berlusconi said in one interview.
Commenting on Zelensky’s remarks on her Telegram page, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dubbed it “another fit of impotent rage by the bunker resident,” and suggested that the Ukrainian leader had thus inadvertently "compared his regime with a fascist one."
Despite breaking off his close personal friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine crisis, Berlusconi has become a political punching bag in Kiev and the West for calling for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, and for pointing out that Ukraine bears the lion’s share of the blame for the crisis. Earlier this month, he criticized Prime Minister Meloni’s decision to meet with Zelensky, saying he judges “this gentleman’s behavior very, very negatively,” and that the crisis could have been averted if Kiev did not attack the Donbass.
Berlusconi’s comments prompted Meloni’s office and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to reiterate Rome’s full-fledged support for Ukraine.