Berlusconi says he has "enough" contact with Putin again and gifts are exchanged

MADRID, 19 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has claimed to have "enough" contact with Russian President Vladimir Puitin, "a person of peace and good sense" with whom he has recently been sharing gifts.

"I have been in contact with President Putin quite a bit again," Berlusconi is heard saying in some audios published by the Italian agency LaPress. In them you can also hear the former Italian Prime Minister assure that if Ukraine enters NATO that would trigger a third world war.

"I cannot personally express my opinion because if it is later released to the press it would be a disaster, but I am very, very, very worried", since "Russian ministers have already said on several occasions that we are at war with them, because we provide weapons and financing to Ukraine," he says in secretly recorded audios during a meeting with deputies from Forza Italia.

His party has denied that Berlusconi has resumed contact with Putin and has explained that he was referring to a previous episode. In this sense, he has insisted on the idea that the line of the former prime minister is publicly well known and that it is in line with that of the European Union and the United States.

This renewed approach is evident when Berluconi says that Putin sent him twenty bottles and a "very nice" letter on the occasion of his birthday, on September 29, and in response he sent him as many bottles of lambrusco wine and a letter " just as sweet."

Berlusconi's statements show the closeness of the European extreme right with President Putin, while the extreme right Giorgia Meloni tries to camouflage those pro-Russian postulates known among some of his partners, such as the new president of the Chamber of Deputies, Lorenzo Fontana.

Meanwhile, Meloni negotiates with the right-wing bloc to form his new cabinet. Before knowing the audios, Berlusconi himself already announced that Forza Italia will occupy, among others, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice, precisely now when the former prime minister has several open fronts in the courts.