Italy’s coalition dealt blow after Berlusconi lauds Putin

Bloomberg

Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing leader poised to form a new Italian government, said she’d give up on the fledgling coalition if her allies can’t commit to supporting Ukraine along with Italy’s European Union and Nato partners.
“I intend to lead a government with a clear and unambiguous foreign policy line. Italy is fully, and proudly, part of Europe and of Nato,” Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
“Anyone who does not agree with this cornerstone will not be able to be part of the government, even at the cost of not forming a government.”
Meloni’s remarks come after audio surfaced of coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi, who leads the center-right Forza Italia party, saying he rekindled his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and laying the blame of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February after having built up a military presence on the country’s border. To justify the invasion, Putin accused Ukraine’s government of “genocide” against ethnic Russians and native Russian speakers in the Donbas, an unfounded allegation wholly rejected by Ukraine as well as the US and the European Union.

Coalition Tensions
Meloni’s coalition — which includes her Brothers of Italy, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s League— scored a decisive electoral victory Sept. 25 and she is poised to start forming a government as soon as Friday. Meloni’s readiness to ditch the chance of becoming Italy’s first female prime minister underscores the depth of the political quagmire her partner unleashed.
In the audio, which was published by the LaPresse newswire on Wednesday, Berlusconi, 86, can be heard saying that Putin did not want to go to war but was pushed to do so because of Ukraine’s continued attacks against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas.