The new Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, who is expected to take office next week, released a statement this Wednesday (19) to deny possible associations with Russia generated by the news that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is leaving of his coalition, has resumed friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the statement, Meloni claimed that he will lead a government with a clear foreign policy, aligned with the West. She had already assured that she would maintain the Italian line of sanctions on Russia and support for Ukraine in the war fought in Eastern Europe.
“Italy, with its head held high, is part of Europe and the Atlantic alliance [OTAN]”, said the future prime minister. “Whoever does not agree with this pillar cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government.”
The conservative coalition formed by the Brothers of Italy (FdI) parties, Meloni’s party, Matteo Salvini’s League, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), and We Moderates won the Italian general election in September.
The president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, will start this Thursday (20th) a round of consultations with the parties aiming at the formation of the new government of the country. Consultations will be held at the Quirinale Palace in Rome, seat of the Head of State, throughout the day and also on Friday (21) morning, according to a statement released by the presidency.
Subsequently, Mattarella will have to charge the formation of the new government, predictably to Meloni. Mattarella set aside Friday morning, starting at 10:30 am (5:30 am GMT), to meet with the right-wing coalition that won the elections.
The intention of the right-wing parties is for Meloni to receive and accept the mission on Friday itself or during the weekend, in order to submit to the scrutiny of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies as early as the beginning of next week.
The winning coalition was shaken this week by views from Berlusconi, who blamed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky for “provoking” the invasion of Russia.
In a recording of a conversation with parliamentarians from his party, released by the Italian press, Berlusconi said he resumed his friendship with Putin, who sent him a “very kind letter” and 20 bottles of vodka, for being “the first of his five real friends.” ”.
In the audio, the former premier accused Ukraine of undermining the Minsk peace accords, and Zelensky for “tripling the attacks on the separatist republics” of the Donbas.
“So the two republics [Donestk e Luhansk, recentemente
incorporadas pela Rússia] register casualties among soldiers that reach, as they tell me, 5, 6, 7 thousand dead. Zelensky comes and triples the attacks. The desperate republics send a delegation to Moscow and manage to talk to Putin,” says the former prime minister.
“They say: ‘Vladimir, we don’t know what to do, defend us.’ He is against every initiative, resists, comes under strong pressure all over Russia, then decides to invent a special operation. Troops should enter Ukraine, reach Kyiv in a week, overthrow the government, Zelensky etc, and place another one already elected by the Ukrainian minority of good people with common sense.”
However, Berlusconi laments three times, Ukraine has won economic and military support from the West.
“He [Putin] went to Ukraine and found an unpredictable situation of Ukrainian resistance, which on the third day, began to receive money and weapons from the West. And the war, instead of being a two-week operation, has become a 200-year operation.”
At another point in the recording, Berlusconi can be heard saying that “another risk” is that “unfortunately, in the Western world there are no leaders, neither in Europe nor in the United States”.
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