The former Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has come to the defence of the Russian President saying that the would “take a bullet” for Vladimir Putin as he is a “first class person.”
Ecclestone criticised the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and accused him of “not listening” to Putin which he claims would have adverted war.
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Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday morning, Ecclestone said, “Unfortunately he’s like a lot of business people, certainly like me, that we make mistakes from time to time and when you make the mistake, you have to do the best you can to get out of it.”
The 91 year old businessman added, “The other person in Ukraine, his profession I understand, used to be a comedian – and I think it seems that he wants to continue that profession.
“I think if he’d thought about things, he would definitely have made a big enough effort to speak to Putin, who is a sensible person, and would have listened to him and could have probably done something about it.”
It was pointed out to Ecclestone that thousands of innocent lives have been lost with hundreds of thousands being forced to flee Ukraine, the former F1 boss simply said, “It wasn’t intentional.”
Ecclestone was asked if he was suggesting the President Zelenskyy should “have done more to avert the war – and that it could have been avoided by Zelenskyy’s actions, not by a change in Putin’s actions.”
He replied, “Absolutely.”
“I’m quite sure Ukraine, if they’d wanted to get out of it properly, could have done,” he added.
Ecclestone has not spoken to his friend Putin since the war started he said, he added, “I’m absolutely sure he now wishes he hadn’t started this whole business – but it didn’t start as a war.”
A Formula One spokesman said, “The comments made by Bernie Ecclestone are his personal views and are in very stark contrast to the position of the modern values of our sport.”
