Putin accused of giving Berlusconi cut from energy deals

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Source: The Independent

The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin bought the political compliance of Silvio Berlusconi by allowing the Italian Prime Minister a cut from major energy deals, America's ambassador to Rome has suggested, in the most startling WikiLeaks documents to emerge yet.

Mr Putin's hold over Mr Berlusconi is the focus of US diplomats' concern in a series of dispatches in which they suggest the Italian leader's eagerness to please the Russian Prime Minister may become a threat to political and economic stability in the region.

The allegations by the former US ambassador Ronald Spogli were revealed little more than a day after the US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton attempted to heal the diplomatic wounds caused by earlier leaked papers in which American diplomats described the Italian premier as "politically weak", "vain" and "feckless".

(snip)
But it is the accusations of personal profiteering that are the most serious. A report dated 26 January 2009 quotes US embassy sources within the Italian Prime Minister's People of Freedom (PDL) Party as believing "that Berlusconi and his cronies are profiting personally and handsomely from many of the energy deals between Italy and Russia".

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-accused-of-giving-berlusconi-cut-from-energy-deals-2149802.html

[sudopod]

1. So wikileaks doesn't just hate America, heh. nt