Drama, video footage released. This was Putin's initial plan?

Drama, video footage released. This was Putin's initial plan?

The words of the former Italian Prime Minister, who was legally sentenced to prison, and is now the leader of the party he founded, which is part of the winning right-wing coalition, were uttered yesterday, during a closed meeting with the newly elected Forza senators in the Palazzo Montecitori.

At the same meeting, he was also recorded boasting that Putin wished him a happy birthday by sending him 20 bottles of vodka, and that he returned the courtesy to Putin with 20 bottles of Lambrusco, along with exchanging "sweet messages".

After releasing a first audio recording Tuesday about Berlusconi re-establishing contact with Putin over gifts and “sweet” birthday notes, LaPresse on Wednesday published another recording, apparently from the same session, in which Berlusconi seemingly defended Putin's decision to try to oust the Ukrainian government.

The video was published by the Italian newspaper La Presse on Wednesday. Today, the same portal published a new video in which Berlusconi explains the war in Ukraine to his party colleagues, firmly advocating the Russian position on how the invasion of a sovereign state took place.

"Do you know how this happened with Russia? But for this I ask you for maximum discretion. Do you promise? (...). It was like this - in 2014, in Minsk, Belarus, an agreement was signed between Ukraine and the two newly formed republics of Donbas for peace agreement so that they would no longer attack each other. Ukraine throws that agreement to hell a year later and starts attacking the borders of the two republics. The two republics suffer military losses which, they tell me, come to 5, 6, 7 thousand dead. Zelensky comes, triples attacks on two republics. Death toll was increasing," says Berlusconi.

He then says that Putin's real goal was to capture Kyiv and oust Zelensky from power. "In desperation, the two republics send a delegation to Moscow and finally manage to talk to Putin. They say, 'Vladimir, we don't know what to do, you must defend us'. He opposes those initiatives, resists, suffers strong pressure from the whole of Russia. And then he decides to invent a special operation", Berlusconi said.

“The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv within a week, replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government with decent people and then leave,” Berlusconi told his favorite late-night talk show host on September 22. He said Putin's “special operation” in Ukraine was supposed to have lasted just two weeks to install a “decent, sensible” government in Kyiv.

But thanks to “unexpected and unforeseen” Ukrainian resistance and funding and weapons from the West that arrived “on Day 3, a special operation that was supposed to have lasted two weeks has become a war that will last some 200-plus years. So that's how things stand," Berlusconi said. "I don't see how Putin and Zelensky can sit down at the negotiating table. Because there is no possible way. Zelensky, in my opinion... forget it, I can't say..." Berlusconi can be heard saying. However, the release of that video caused a real political drama in Italy. Future Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, also spoke. "I was, I am and I will always be clear about one thing. I intend to lead the government with a clear and unambiguous foreign policy line," Meloni said, adding that Italy is part of Europe and the Euro-Atlantic Alliance.

“Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the (NATO) Atlantic alliance,” she said. “Whoever doesn't agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government. Italy will never be the weak link of the West with us in government", she concluded.