Business Insider: "The Italian government makes its choice in favor of Russia"

Today's edition of the analytical magazine Business Insider wrote today about special relations between Russia and Italy. Despite the absence of Russia at the G7 summit, the country's leader Vladimir Putin maintains friendly relations with many countries, including Italy. The Russian President's visit underlines that not all EU member states are aggressively opposed to Russia, and many, by contrast, see in Russia a reliable partner and ally.

Many members of the Italian Parliament were against the sanctions against Russia, and the Northern League party has even set up a motion for a parliamentary group called "Friends of Putin." In addition, in Italy many believe that Putin is the world's most important politician, acting in opposition to Obama and his foreign policy.

Another sign of close ties between the two countries is that no Italians were included on the list of 89 citizens of the EU who are denied entry to Russia. The Italian leadership strongly supports dialogue with Russia, while remaining within the framework of the EU policies. The fact that Italy is one of the countries where the so-called policy of "austerity" has led to a sharp reduction in jobs has resulted in a decrease in income and consequently a dissatisfaction with the European Parliament and domestic policy.

In addition, economic and trade relations between the two countries are improving, there is a common interest in the field of IT-technologies and the energy sector. The EU has a mixed reaction to the cooperation between Russia and Italy. On the one hand, this is a very undesirable partnership in light of the sanctions and other mutual restrictions, but on the other hand, it is also a chance for Europe to restore relations with official Moscow. Whether Europe takes advantage of the chance given to it is still unknown, but for Italy it is evident that the government is making its choice in favor of Russia.

The Chinese media resource China.org.cn writes about the myths and realities of the summit of the "Big Seven". Chinese analysts who are able to assess the situation in the world from the position of observers came to the conclusion that, despite the apparent obvious confrontation between Europe and the United States against Russia, the West is, in fact, fraught with more differences than unity. This is clearly shown by the last summit of the "Big Seven", to which Russia was not invited, and Obama took the opportunity to discuss the issue of further tightening of the sanctions against the Kremlin. However, analyzing the positions of all the participants of the summit, it can be understood that there is no unity among them.

Within the European Union there is no consensus on how to behave in relation to Russia, whether to impose additional measures against or renew partnerships, despite the criticism of the United States. The point of disagreement is that the conflict in Ukraine, which caused the confrontation between Europe and Russia, cannot be considered as an instance of intervention on the part of Russia, because the presence of the US military and the United Kingdom in Ukraine rather compromises the US and the UK respectively, rather than Russia. In addition, countries such as the Czech Republic, Greece and Hungary oppose new sanctions, and this leads to a division inside Europe itself, for which such a scenario is unlikely to be desired. The United States, in turn, seeks to solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear program, although it continues to accuse Russia of "non-compliance with international law."

Among all the members of the summit of the G7, perhaps there is no country that would like to resume a cold war or a next round of confrontation. Europe is unlikely to take any steps against Russia, and the United States without the support of Europe will not have much impact on the region either. Today, the West has not made open attempts at rapprochement with Moscow, but most likely this will happen in the near future, since it is obvious that without Russia a world balance cannot be achieved.