The former Prime Minister of Italy, billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, has died. This is reported by the Italian edition of Corriere Della Sera.
The politician died in the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, he was 86 years old. A few weeks ago, he was discharged from the medical facility after a long hospitalization — 45 days — associated with pneumonia and leukemia. Later, on June 9, he was hospitalized again.
Berlusconi was born in 1936 in Milan. For a long time he was engaged in business, and in 1994 he founded the political movement Forza Italia, which was later transformed into a party. Since 1994, he was the prime minister of Italy, but in 2011 Berlusconi resigned after a series of scandals and prosecution — he was later sentenced to seven years in prison, found guilty of sexual relations with a minor and abuse of office. In 2011, according to Forbes magazine, Berlusconi, with a fortune of $ 7.8 billion, was in 118th place in the ranking of the richest people in the world.
Before the start of the war in Ukraine, the politician supported Vladimir Putin and even called him his friend, they regularly visited each other's residences. In 2015, Berlusconi said that Putin, at one of the dinners, offered him citizenship and the position of Minister of Economy; the Kremlin denied this. After Putin congratulated him on his birthday by phone in September 2021, Berlusconi, in a conversation with La Stampa, called Putin “the last outstanding leader in the modern international political arena.”
After the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the former prime minister Italy, speaking to supporters of his Forza Italia party, said he was «disappointed» in the Russian president. “We are facing unprecedented aggression against such a neutral country as Ukraine, which today is fighting for its freedom with great honor. Aggression against Ukraine has brought Russia into the hands of China. It's a pity. I am deeply disappointed and saddened by the behavior of Vladimir Putin, who has taken on a very serious responsibility to the whole world,” Berlusconi said at the time.