Italy’s Berlusconi says he wouldn’t seek meeting with Zelenskiy if PM

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would not seek a meeting with Volodymir Zelenskiy if he were still head of government, because he blames
the Ukrainian President for the war with Russia, he said on Sunday.
Berlusconi, 86, often boasted of his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and created a storm last September when he said Putin had been pushed into the war and wanted to put “decent people” in charge of Kyiv.
Berlusconi, leader of the conservative Forza Italia party that is part of the country’s ruling coalition, was speaking after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday accused France of jeopardising EU unity on Ukraine by organising a Franco-German dinner in Paris with Zelenskiy that excluded other European allies.
“I would never have gone talking to Zelenskiy because we are witnessing the devastation of his country and the slaughter of its soldiers and civilians,” Berlusconi told journalist after voting at a polling station for a regional election in Lombardy.