Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin
“SILVIO HUNTING WITH PUTIN HE DIDN’T WANT TO SHOOT THE ROE DEER THEN BEHIND A TREE HE VOMITED”
A macabre episode emerges years later. To tell it is Fabrizio Cicchitto, long-time politician, very close to Berlusconi during his political activity and former group leader at the Chamber of the People of Freedom and former coordinator of Forza Italia. The one who wrote it Corriere della Sera which explains how Berlusconi, Putin’s close friend, for a moment he doubted the Russian president. It happened during a holiday spent together in a dacha (a house located in the countryside), of which there is trace in an article published by Mattia Feltri in the Press in 2013.
A story that remained mysterious for years. It was an episode that shook the Knight’s certainties, “because Vladimir showed me a violent nature that I didn’t imagine in such a kind and rational man”. This was the first thought with which Berlusconi, as soon as he returned to Italy, confided to his spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti and to Cicchitto, who at the time was group leader in the Chamber.
Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin
This is Cicchitto’s story: «Putin told me: “Silvio, let’s go hunting”. I thought, “Hunting? I have never touched a rifle.” But he insisted and so I accompanied him. When we got to the woods he gave me a rifle. I got anxious. As we walked through the snow, he saw two deer and motioned for me to look at one: “That’s yours. He shoots”. I made him understand that even if I died I wouldn’t have shot. Then he shot them both and killed them. He looked at me with satisfaction: “Today I will offer you extraordinary food.”
Putin visiting Italy in 2019, hugging his friend Silvio Berlusconi
He went down the slope towards the animals, holding a knife. He quartered a beast and took out its heart. Then he had a man from the escort give him a wooden tray, he gave it to me and put that piece of bloody meat on it: “It will be an amazing meal.” I had a stroke. I hid behind a tree and vomited.”. The silence after the story lasted for a few, interminable seconds. Until Berlusconi commented: “Maybe it’s just the habit of a hunter.”
«I had the opportunity to say that between Berlusconi and Putin there was a bond of psychological homosexuality: they admired each other and theirs was an absolutely equal relationship. Putin considered this Italian entrepreneur who controlled television and had managed to break into politics to be brilliant. In turn, Berlusconi considered him a pragmatist, capable of managing a country like Russia and with whom you could do many things together: from business to women. Silvio had the ambition to bring it to the West and to NATO. “I will go down in history”, he said. He thought he would win and instead he was screwed by Putin.”
Putin-Berlusconi meeting in Crimea
In what sense? «Putin wanted to get back into the big game. And he used Berlusconi and his relations with the Americans to return to the parlor from which Russia had emerged after the end of the Soviet Union. The famous summit of Pratica di Mare was functional to his plan. In fact, as soon as he got back into the game, he started elbowing. When he threatened to enter Georgia with tanks, he was stopped by Berlusconi. And this confirmed Silvio’s idea that he could influence him. History says it didn’t happen that way.
Therefore, after the invasion of Ukraine, Berlusconi was disappointed. Even if he was mad at Zelensky, who he defined as “a megalomaniac actor dangerous to himself and others”. So much so that he agrees with Putin’s attempt to replace the Ukrainian president with “good people”.
«Berlusconi completely missed Putin’s cultural background, which had Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible and Stalin as points of reference. Each of these characters had a very strong authoritarian component, functional not to the restoration of the Soviet Union but to the myth of Great Russia. I had the privilege of meeting the greatest Italian Slavist, Vittorio Strada, who explained to me in advance the complexity of the Russian president and his ideological approach. Putin was the first to understand that politics could be done through the Internet and penetrate the system of liberal democracies, which he despises, to manipulate it. Through the Internet he supported Brexit, the separatist referendum in Catalonia, Donald Trump’s electoral campaign and lastly the anti-vax movement. He has always aimed to destabilize the West. But Berlusconi glossed over certain issues. As Prime Minister he was interested in completing his political operation.”