{"id":26610,"date":"2022-10-18T23:13:46","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T23:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=26610"},"modified":"2022-10-18T23:13:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T23:13:48","slug":"berlusconi-said-he-received-vodka-from-putin-for-birthday-reports-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/10\/18\/berlusconi-said-he-received-vodka-from-putin-for-birthday-reports-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlusconi said he received vodka from Putin for birthday, reports say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Silvio Berlusconi has allegedly said Vladimir Putin gave him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday after he \u201cre-established\u201d relations with the Russian president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berlusconi turned 86 on 29 September, four days after a coalition including his Forza Italia party won the general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italy\u2019s three-time former prime minister, an old friend of Putin\u2019s, is reported to have told a meeting of Forza Italia parliamentarians in Rome on Tuesday that the shipment of vodka was accompanied by a \u201cvery sweet letter\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forza Italia denied he made the comments, but\u00a0an audio clip published by La Presse news agency appeared to suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the audio reported by La Presse, Berlusconi said he returned Putin\u2019s gesture by sending him bottles of Lambrusco wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRussian ministers have said on several occasions that we are at war with them, because we are providing arms and funding to Ukraine,\u201d Berlusconi allegedly said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can\u2019t personally give my opinion because if it is told to the press it will turn out to be a disaster, but I am very, very, very worried. I re-established relations with President Putin, a little bit. I knew him as a peaceful and sensible person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Silvio<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Berlusconi has publicly condemned the war but just days before the elections he told an Italian TV show that\u00a0Putin was <\/a>pushed to invade Ukraine by the Russian people and by ministers\u00a0who wanted Volodymyr Zelenskiy\u2019s administration replaced with \u201cdecent people\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPutin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation,\u201d Berlusconi told Porta a Porta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv within a week, replace Zelenskiy\u2019s government with decent people and then leave. Instead they found resistance, which was then fed by arms of all kinds from the west.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forza Italia is\u00a0a junior partner in a coalition led by Giorgia Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots, and Matteo Salvini\u2019s far-right League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to be sworn into government next week, the coalition has pledged to continue Italy\u2019s support of Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia over the invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silvio Berlusconi has allegedly said Vladimir Putin gave him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday after he \u201cre-established\u201d relations with the Russian president. Berlusconi turned 86 on 29 September, four days after a coalition including his Forza Italia party won the general election. Italy\u2019s three-time former prime minister, an old friend of Putin\u2019s, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5522,8713,911,159,9883,5798,8016,2264,5252,9259,1392,5342,10560,9833,8007,6864,9374,3805,6242,3174,71,5506,3457,5217,5713,11906,9178,5180,694,6886,5251,3954,594,6874],"class_list":["post-26610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-arms","tag-birthday","tag-election","tag-eu","tag-fed","tag-former-italian-prime-minister-silvio-berlusconi","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-government","tag-invasion","tag-italian","tag-italy","tag-kyiv","tag-la","tag-meeting","tag-meloni","tag-ministers","tag-population","tag-president","tag-president-putin","tag-prime-minister","tag-putin","tag-rome","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-sanctions","tag-the-general","tag-troops","tag-ukraine","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","tag-war","tag-will","tag-who","tag-zelenskiy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}