Russian President Vladimir Putin was
pushed by pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass and the Russian
media and people into war in Ukraine, ex-premier and
centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party leader Silvio Berlusconi
told Italian TV Thursday.
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
three-time former prime minister.
"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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