Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has reportedly rekindled his friendship with Russian premier Vladimir Putin after a momentary chill in relations.
In a lavish gesture, Putin gifted the 86-year-old Berlusconi 20 bottles of premium Russian vodka and a private message on his birthday final month, the Italian billionaire has revealed.
“I have got back in touch a bit with Putin, quite a lot, in the sense that for my birthday he sent me 20 bottles of vodka and a very sweet letter,” Berlusconi informed lawmakers from his Forza Italia get together, in response to the audio issued by information company LaPresse.
Not to be outdone, the Italian media baron mentioned he “answered him [Putin] with some bottles of Lambrusco [wine] and an equally sweet letter. In the audio, he also referred to Putin as “a peaceful and sensible person.”
Amid stories of their renewed friendship, Berlusconi’s get together, Forza Italia, has denied that he got again in contact with Putin and reiterated their chief’s anti-war stance.
In an announcement, the get together, which lately gained the overall election, mentioned that the place of Berlusconi and the get together on the Russia-Ukraine warfare was “in line with the position of Europe and the United States,” and there was “no room for ambiguity and there never has been.”
Putin and Berlusconi bonded within the early 2000s, quickly after every took workplace. For over 20 years, their bromance was well-documented within the media. Their amity endured even after Berlusconi was ousted from energy in 2011 after years of intercourse scandals and allegations of corruption.
Berlusconi had even refrained from publicly condemning the Russian PM after he invaded Ukraine in February 2022. However, a rift shaped between the 2 males when in April, the Italian got here out and mentioned that he was “deeply disappointed and saddened” by Putin’s behaviour over the warfare in Ukraine , as reported by The Moscow Times.
But in an abrupt turnaround, Berlusconi said final month that Putin had been pushed into the warfare and wished to place “decent people” in command of Kyiv. The remarks got here days forward of basic elections in Italy, and had drawn fierce criticism. That, nonetheless, didn’t forestall Berlusconi’s get together from sweeping the polls.
(With inputs from Reuters)
