MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday asked the audience at an economic forum in St Petersburg to hold a minute’s silence in honour of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi who died on Monday aged 86.
Putin, who said in a message of condolence earlier this week that he regarded Berlusconi as a dear friend and an outstanding politician, told the audience:
“Just recently the former prime minister of Italy Mr Berlusconi passed away. He did a lot to build normal long-term relations between Russia and NATO countries. He was a very good man, very active and energetic.”
He added: “I consider him without any exaggeration to be a personality of a global scale. I apologise to the audience. I would ask for a moment of silence in his memory.”
Like former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Berlusconi cultivated close relations with Moscow during Putin’s first years in the Kremlin from 2000 onwards.
Both Berlusconi and Schroeder became personal friends of the Russian leader and were criticised in the West for standing by him long after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
