It's good that Putin's tank didn't drive into his backyard – Zelenskyy's comment on Berlusconi statement

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sharply commented on the words of Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian Prime Minister and leader of one of the coalition parties, who urged Zelenskyy to stop "attacking" Donbas in order to end the war.

Source: Zelenskyy during a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Kyiv on 21 February, as reported by European Pravda

Quote: "Mr. Berlusconi... His house has never been hit with missiles every day, and thank God that his partner from the Russian Federation did not drive a tank into his yard and kill his family and friends. I think Mr. Berlusconi did not wake up at 3:00 to start washing clothes and cooking for his children two days in advance because of the power outages, because there might simply be no electricity for the next two or three days – because of the great 'brotherly love' of the Russian people," he said.

The President of Ukraine emphasised that he wished that "this had never happened in Italy and that no one would have lived through it, because it is just a great tragedy."

"In order to completely form an opinion, I think one needs to come here and see with their own eyes what is happening. And then, if a politician or non-politician comes to see what happened here, what bloody traces the Russian 'brotherly' federation left behind, then we will communicate on the same level," Zelenskyy stressed.

Previously: Commenting on the meeting between Meloni and Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels, Berlusconi said that if he still were prime minister, he would not have met with Zelenskyy. He said that if Zelensky had stopped "attacking" two oblasts in Ukraine’s east, the Russian attack on Ukraine would not have happened at all.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry responded by saying that by spreading Russian propaganda, the former Italian prime minister was encouraging Russia to continue its crimes against Ukraine. Later, Berlusconi had said that he had always been on the side of the Ukrainian people.

Meloni arrived in Kyiv on 21 February around noon by train, which left the Przemyśl railway station in Poland at night. She visited the cities of Bucha and Irpin in Kyiv Oblast and held talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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