Putin wanted to replace Selenskyj with a government of decent people, says Silvio Berlusconi

Vladimir Putin was "forced" by his supporters to intervene in Ukraine and simply wanted to replace the government in Kiev with a new regime "decent" person, claims Silvio Berlusconi.

The former Italian Prime Minister, who will probably be part of the new government of Italy after the parliamentary elections on Sunday, made the extraordinary comments during an interview in an Italian program for current affairs on Thursday

The two, an old friend of Putin, have exchanged personal gifts in the past and were in the datis in the Datscha of the Russian leader, where they were photographed and photographed with large fur hats.

Critics accuse Mr. Berlusconi to be an apologet of the regime in Moscow.

Putin is in a "difficult and dramatic situation" after being forced to attack Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists in Donbass, his ministers and his party, said Mr. Berlusconi, who served as prime minister.

Separatists told him that they had suffered 16,000 victims in the years of fighting the Ukrainian armed forces, and asked for Russian protection, said Mr. Berlusconi.

"Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and his ministers to carry out this special operation," said Mr. Berlusconi, whose party Forza Italia will contest the election in the alliance with the anti-immigration league and the extreme right, led by Giorgia Meloni.

"So the troops should march in, reach Kiev in a week, replace the Selenskyj government with decent people and then come back after a week," he told Porta a Porta.

"Instead, they came across an unexpected resistance, which was then fed by the west of all kinds of arms," he said.

he did not mention the Russian death squadrons, who reports according to the invasion of the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj.

Surveys indicate that the legal coalition will easily win the elections on Sunday.

Since the brothers in Italy are the strongest of the three parties, Ms. Meloni is ready to become Italy's first female prime minister. The government will be the rightest in Italy since the days of Benito Mussolini.

Political opponents and critics have warned that a triumph of the alliance in Moscow is applauded because not only Mr. Berlusconi, but also the chairman of the league, Matteo Salvini, is set pro-Russian.

He once stood on the red place in Moscow with a T-shirt with Putin print, spoke out against the imposition of sanctions against Russia and criticized that Italy sends weapons to Ukraine.

"What Putin wants is a shared Italy and a shared Europe, an Italy that works to split Europe," said Enrico Letta, the chairman of the Democratic Party of the Left, on Thursday.

"When I feel that Putin pays particular attention to the result in Italy, that he would be happy about the victory of the right in our country, I'm worried."

The Russian embassy in Rome published a tweet on Thursday, which shows how Putin has met a number of Italian leaders from the entire political spectrum over the years:

The hint seemed to be that they were all at some point compromised by close relationships with the Russian leader - the fact that some of them had hit him in a purely institutional function.

"From the recent history of relationships between Russia and Italy," wrote the message. "We have some of them that we have to remember."