{"id":48557,"date":"2022-10-19T14:05:28","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T11:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=48557"},"modified":"2022-10-19T14:05:33","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T11:05:33","slug":"berlusconis-statements-about-reconnecting-with-putin-caused-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=48557","title":{"rendered":"Berlusconi&#8217;s statements about reconnecting with Putin caused concern"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KYIV. UkraineGate .19 . October\u00a0. 2022 | War News .\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi again caused a resonance with comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, which appeared on Tuesday .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The LaPresse news agency\u00a0released\u00a0audio of Berlusconi&#8217;s secretly recorded speech to members of parliament from Forza Italia on Tuesday. In it, the 86-year-old politician says he has reconnected with Putin and says the Kremlin chief considers him one of &#8220;his five true friends.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Details<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Initially, Berlusconi&#8217;s proxies, including potential future foreign minister Antonio Tajani, dismissed the comments as &#8220;old stories&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, in the recording, Berlusconi directly says that Russian ministers say that the West is already at war with Russia because it &#8220;gives Ukraine weapons and money,&#8221; the publication notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Tuesday night, Berlusconi&#8217;s Forza Italia party, which as part of the right-wing coalition recently won the election, only said Berlusconi&#8217;s position on Ukraine still coincided with that of Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Forza Italia is currently in talks to become a minority partner in a coalition led by Georgia Maloney&#8217;s far-right Brothers of Italy party and also includes the far-right populist League party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are concerns that Italy may no longer support Kyiv after the new government led by Meloni comes to power, the publication notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Days before Italy&#8217;s elections, Berlusconi, who had long been hesitant to condemn the invasion after the outbreak of war,\u00a0said\u00a0Putin was &#8220;forced&#8221; to invade Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enrico Letta, head of Italy&#8217;s Social Democrats (PD), warned in a tweet that comments should not be taken lightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The new majority is in the process of a dangerous shift in Italy&#8217;s position on Russia towards ambiguity,&#8221; said Letta, a former prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called Berlusconi&#8217;s &#8220;honeymoon with Putin&#8221; and Forza Italia Senator Maurizio Gasparri&#8217;s proposal against abortion as moving in a direction that would &#8220;lead them to smash against a wall.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Source:\u00a0Ukrgate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KYIV. UkraineGate .19 . October\u00a0. 2022 | War News .\u00a0 Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi again caused a resonance with comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, which appeared on Tuesday . Context The LaPresse news agency\u00a0released\u00a0audio of Berlusconi&#8217;s secretly recorded speech to members of parliament from Forza Italia on Tuesday. In it, the 86-year-old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":48559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10750,11447,16,10831],"tags":[813,996,2399,1000,1024,1064,1854],"class_list":["post-48557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-political-news","category-society","category-ukraine-news","category-war-news","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-gate","tag-ukraine-news","tag-ukrgate","tag-war","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48566,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48557\/revisions\/48566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}