The favorite to become Italy’s new leader, Giorgia Meloni, has delivered a strong rebuke to her right-wing coalition ally, Silvio Berlusconi, after he made private comments justifying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Berlusconi’s radical pro-Putin attitude risks derailing Meloni’s chances of leading a new right-wing administration, just as Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday opens consultations with parties to form a new government.
“Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the Atlantic alliance,” Meloni said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Whoever doesn’t agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government.”
Italian commentators have questioned whether her strong warning means the government Meloni has been aiming to form could fall apart before it’s even official, or whether her intent is to split up Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.
Italian news outlet LaPresse released an audio recording this week in which Berlusconi can be heard boasting to party colleagues about his exchanges of letters and gifts of vodka and wine with Putin. Of Putin’s “five true friends, I am the number one,” he bragged, adding that the Russian leader had been misunderstood and was a “man of peace.”
LaPresse released even more explosive bits of the recording Wednesday, in which Berlusconi can be heard defending Putin’s aim to remove the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv and replace it with a “decent, sensible” administration.
Parroting Kremlin talking points, Berlusconi attacked Zelenskyy, arguing the Ukrainian president had fanned the flames of war by launching attacks against the self-proclaimed Russian-backed separatist regions in the Donbas.
Berlusconi also belittled Western leadership in the unguarded remarks. “Another risk, another danger for the West, is that we have no leaders; there are no leaders in the West, no leaders in the U.S. I will not tell you what I know, but we have no leaders,” he said, adding: “Can I tell you something? I am the only leader.”
Berlusconi’s No. 2 in Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani, was expected to become Italy’s next foreign minister — but the comments from his boss are now throwing that prospect into doubt.
Tajani on Wednesday sought to distance himself from Berlusconi’s comments, tweeting that “in every institutional venue, [Forza Italia] have always supported freedom and condemned the Russian invasion” — in every venue except his own party’s closed-door meetings would be more accurate.
Later, Berlusconi tried to distance himself from the secretly recorded comments, insisting his position is the same as that of the Italian government, the EU and NATO: “A condemnation of the military coup against a free and sovereign country.”
In an interview with Corriere Della Sera, he added: “Given the difficult international situation and the importance of the decisions to be taken for the future of our country, I thought I could dedicate my time to more important things rather than rectifying distorted and ridiculous interpretations of my thoughts. Perhaps, all this could be avoided if we would put some terrible habits aside, such as secretly recording bits of private conversations.”
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