Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s comments about Vladimir Putin were leaked Tuesday night.
“I have renewed contact with President Putin a little bit, a little bit a lot, in the sense that for my birthday, Putin sent me 20 bottles of vodka and a very nice letter,” he said during a conversation that has been recorded. The complicity of the two men when Silvio Berlusconi dominated transalpine politics was well known.
Your party is trying to put out the fire
“I responded by sending him bottles of Lambrusco and a very nice letter. He told me that I was the first of his five real friends,” he continues in the recording that has transpired.
Suffice it to say that these recordings immediately caused a stir. In particular within the ranks of the opposition, while the movement of Silvio Berlusconi, an associate of the Fratelli d’Italia of the post-fascist Giorgia Meloni, is part of the coalition called to form the next government. “It’s not folklore, it’s not jokes. The new majority is starting a change in Italy’s trajectory towards an increasingly ambiguous position towards Russia,” Enrico Letta, head of the Democratic Party, denounced on Twitter.
Hastily, Forza Italia issued a statement to clarify the position of the party and Berlusconi vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine, “in line with that of Europe and the United States.”
The statement was not enough to appease the press. “Berlusconi freewheeling”, “Berlusconi without a brake”, we could read on some covers and even, for the RepublicGiorgia “Meloni hostage of the pro-Russian”.
Source: BFM TV
