Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reproached former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for never having experienced the horrors of war and his house was not bombed. This statement was made despite the fact that Berlusconi saw the war as a child. The Ukrainian leader stated this at a press conference in Kyiv after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister George Meloni, ANSA reports.

A week earlier, Berlusconi spoke sharply about the actions of Zelensky, who, according to him, had only to stop attacking the two autonomous republics of Donbass in order to prevent a conflict. The Italian politician stressed that he negatively assesses the behavior of the President of Ukraine and rejected the possibility of ever talking to him.

Giving an assessment to this statement, Zelensky said that politicians have the right to an opinion, receiving a mandate from their society for this, but Kyiv, according to him, sees the support of the Italians. And the head of state explained the criticism of Berlusconi in his address by the fact that he had no life in wartime. “I think that Berlusconi's house was never bombed with rockets, tanks never drove up to him, no one killed his relatives. Berlusconi has never had to pack his suitcase at 3 am to run, thanks to his brotherly love for Russia,” Zelensky said.

At the same time, it is known that Berlusconi, as a child, found the consequences of the entry of fascist Italy into World War II. Then the aviation of the allies of the Nazi coalition subjected his native Milan to powerful bombardments, which peaked in August 1943, when the future politician was seven years old. In total, during the war, about two thousand inhabitants of Milan became victims of the bombing, 14 thousand buildings were destroyed. The Berlusconi family, like hundreds of thousands of others, moved from the city to the countryside.

Because of Berlusconi's remarks about Zelensky, conservative politicians from nine EU countries announced their decision to boycott the upcoming meeting of conservatives in Italy if the former prime minister is participating in it.