The year after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi travelled to the peninsula to visit Vladimir Putin. The two drank a 240-year-old bottle of wine taken from a Crimean winery and prized by Kyiv as a Ukrainian national asset. Back home, Berlusconi endorsed the annexation, criticised EU sanctions against Moscow and praised the Russian president’s leadership.
Though Berlusconi was by then out of power, the trip reflected the Italian political and business elite’s strong ties with Russia — and Rome’s traditional sympathy for Moscow in its fraught relations with the EU.
But Italy has displayed no such solicitude for the Kremlin since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Under Mario Draghi, the prime minister, Rome has taken a hard line against Russia, while Italian companies remain silent over punitive sanctions on Moscow.