Paolucci co-authored "Oligarchi" or "Oligarchs" in English and "How Putin's Friends are Buying Italy." You will meet people in Italy who are actually pro-Russia. Or at least ready to lay some blame on the United States and/or NATO for provoking Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine, as if somehow absolving the Russian president. Largely, however, such positions are expressed privately. So when former four-time Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, with cameras rolling before him, described his "very, very, very negative view" of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend, he set off a firestorm on this side of the Atlantic.