Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spoke out for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine on Saturday about his former pal Vladimir Putin, expressing that he’s “deeply disappointed and saddened” by the Russian leader. “I got to know him 20 years ago and he had always seemed to me a man of democracy and peace,” Berlusconi said at an event in Rome for his political party, Forza Italia, adding, “What a pity.” Reuters reports that the world leaders were once close friends throughout the prime minister’s three tenures, and that Berlusconi once described Putin as a little brother. The PM now says Putin is solely responsible for the attack on neighboring Ukraine.