PIERS Morgan has torn into “shockingly naive” Bernie Ecclestone after the ex-Formula 1 boss doubled down on backing Vladimir Putin – by calling the Russian warmonger a “good guy”.
The TalkTV host said the comments were extraordinary and offensive while the tyrant was launching a “murderous war” in Ukraine.
Bernie, 91, sparked widespread outrage by saying he’d “take a bullet” for Putin and calling him a “first class person”. on Good Morning Britain.
But rather than admit he was wrong, the business tycoon tried to launch an extraordinary defence on TalkTV – and even went further.
He told Piers: “I stand behind him. As far as I’m concerned he’s a good guy.”
He later added: “I’ll take a bullet for somebody and stand behind him for what it was.
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“I generally don’t know what he had in mind. I hope he also didn’t have in mind what’s actually happened. And I’ll be surprised if he did.”
And he told Piers he was a “little disappointed” in Putin’s actions, adding: “But, what was the alternative? Either he pulls out or the other people surrender?”
Piers hit back: “Well, the alternative is you don’t invade sovereign countries illegally and kill everybody.
“And to say you’re ‘a little disappointed’ by a murderous, genocidal rampage.
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“Again, your use of language Bernie is extraordinary, ‘a little disappointed’ that he’s murdering innocent people every single day all day long?”
Bernie insisted he meant he is “disappointed in what has happened” because he never expected it under Putin’s regime.
And he suggested it has not gone the way the tyrant planned, adding: “When all this started, it was not what he thought was going to happen. I don’t think he believed what happening would happen.”
But Piers, who called his comments “shockingly naive at best”, told him all the evidence suggests that the Russian leader has been planning this invasion for years.
He added: “He’s invaded a sovereign country. He’s carried on waging this war for months and month.
“He’s slaughtered innocent months and children in Ukraine. He attacked a supermarket with a thousand civilians inside.
“The idea that this is something he didn’t mean to do is, I think, for the birds.”
Opening his interview, he insisted: “I don’t regret my feeling for him. He’s not the person that’s being portrayed.”
The veteran former Formula 1 chief launched a bizarre rant in defence of the tyrannical Russian president, who is responsible for the horrific bloodshed in Ukraine.
Wading into Russia’s war on Ukraine in an interview with Good Morning Britain, Ecclestone claimed his long-term pal is a “first class person” adding the brutal deaths of innocent Ukrainians were not “intentional”.
Asked whether he still regards Putin as a friend, the 91-year-old bizarrely said: “I’d still take a bullet for him. I’d rather it didn’t hurt, but if it does I’d still take a bullet, because he’s a first-class person.
“What he’s doing is something that he believed was the right thing he was doing for Russia.
“Unfortunately he is like a lot of business people, we make mistakes from time to time.
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“When you make a mistake you have to do your best to get out of it.
“[The deaths of Ukrainians] wasn’t intentional. Look at Americans moving into countries that have nothing to do with America.”
