Putin's official visit to Italy

The Russian president Vladimir Putin is paying a visit to Italy this March 13th. The editorialist Franco Venturini considers the mystery surrounding the figure. "Only one thing is more frightening than a stable Russia and that is an unstable Russia. Maybe we need to resort to the old cold war system as a reference to understand the torment that characterises today's relations between the West and Russia and to know how to deal with this Vladimir Putin, who is to be honourably received in Italy and the Vatican. Seven years after his arrival in the Kremlin, the Russian president remains an impenetrable enigma for many. Will Prodi, Napolitano and the Pope this evening be welcoming a nation's saviour, or a former KGB agent who has not given up his old methods ? Is Putin responsible for the democratisation of a country where democracy has never existed or is he at the head of a barely masked dictatorship ?"

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