Vittorio Sgarbi, Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Culture of Giorgia Meloni’s government and close collaborator Silvio Berlusconi, 86 years old, told The Spectator that the former prime minister sees himself as the only possible intermediary between Russia and Ukraine. “Berlusconi likes the beautiful gesture (grand geste – ndlr)”, he declared. “And that’s the gesture he means. He believes he can do it, and if he does it without undermining NATO’s position, he will go down in the history books as a world hero.” , he pointed out.

Silvio Berlusconi once served as a mediator between Russia and the West

The British weekly points out that admitting Berlusconi to the peacekeeping mission “may seem absurd”. “He is best known around the world for his bunga bunga parties. (…) His face now looks like a wax dummy and he has trouble moving. But he has lost none of his ability to provoke controversy and is still as unpredictable as ever.

The weekly recalls that Berlusconi had already played the role of mediator in the talks between the West and Russia – notably during the Rome summit in 2002, during the creation of a permanent NATO-Russia Council. It also indicates that Cheese fries and the former Italian prime minister first met at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, in subsequent years the Russian president visited Berlusconi’s summer estate in Sardinia several times, and in 2015 Berlusconi visited Putin in Crimea.

Putin and Berlusconi renewed their friendship

After invasion of ukraine in February this year, Berlusconi complained that he had tried to contact Putin twice, but to no avail. However, The Spectator points out that in a private chat with Forza Italia MPs last month, the former prime minister said he and Putin renewed their friendship when the Russian president sent him 20 bottles of vodka the day on his 86th birthday with a “very sweet letter.” He said Putin had written to him that he had only five true friends, and that Berlusconi was the first of them. He also excused Putin for launching the invasion of Ukraine. Recordings of this meeting were leaked to the media.

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