In Italy, the former president of the council Silvio Berlusconi attracted a volley of green wood, Wednesday October 19, after saying “reconnect” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and blaming kyiv for the invasion of Ukraine. “Freewheeling Berlusconi”, “Berlusconi without brakes”Georgia « Meloni [probable future cheffe du gouvernement] hostage of the prorussians » : the Italian press has widely relayed confidences made this week by Silvio Berlusconi to deputies of his party, Forza Italia (right).
His remarks were leaked and his entourage initially denied, but an audio recording was then released, shocking Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, which is working to form a government with its allies. coalition, Forza Italia and the League of Matteo Salvini (extreme right).
“I reconnected with President Putin a little, a little a lot, in the sense that for my birthday, Putin sent me twenty bottles of vodka and a very nice letter. I responded by sending him bottles of Lambrusco and a very nice letter. He told me that I was the first of his five true friends., said Mr. Berlusconi, who celebrated his 86th birthday on September 29. Forza Italia immediately published a statement to clarify the position of the party and its leader vis-à-vis Russia, “in line with that of Europe and the United States”.
Antonio Tajani weakened
The leftist opposition went wild. “It’s not folklore, it’s not jokes. The new majority initiates a change in Italy’s trajectory towards an increasingly ambiguous position towards Russia”denounced Enrico Letta, former chairman of the board and boss of the Democratic Party, on Twitter.
No è folklore, no sono batte. Da parte della nuova maggioranza è in corso un pericoloso spostamento dell’Italia… https://t.co/epP1k0wfCT
The statements of Silvio Berlusconi could weaken the position of Antonio Tajani, a close, pro-European, approached for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. The entourage of M.me Meloni tried to calm things down. “I would avoid involving Tajani”said Francesco Lollobrigida, Fratelli d’Italia deputy, on Wednesday. “He was President of the European Parliament (…) and has always defended the western alliance” after Russia invaded Ukraine, he said. But for other sources within Fratelli d’Italia, quoted by the daily La Stampa, “Berlusconi could have killed Tajani”.
During the election campaign, Mr Berlusconi had already provoked outrage by claiming that Vladimir Putin had wanted to overthrow the government in kyiv to put in its place “good people”. In the rest of this audio recording, a new part of which leaked on Wednesday evening, Silvio Berlusconi seems to blame the war on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“In 2014 in Minsk, Belarus, an agreement was signed between Ukraine and the two newly formed republics in Donbass for a peace agreement and that no one attacks anyone. A year later, Ukraine throws away this agreement and begins to attack the borders of the two republics”, told Silvio Berlusconi to his elected officials. It evokes “five, six, seven thousand dead” in these fights then “Zelensky arrives and triples the attacks on the two republics”he adds, later returning to his remarks at the end of September according to which Mr. Putin would have been “pushed” by its population and its entourage to invade Ukraine.