Rare wine for Berlusconi creates stir
Though neither are the darlings of the European political establishment, Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi seem to enjoy each other’s company quite a bit.
Mr Berlusconi met his long-standing friend Mr Putin on a private visit to Crimea earlier this month that sparked ire in Kyiv.
Prosecutors in the Ukrainian government, now in exile, say the wine is – or was – worth more than $90,000, so they’ve opened a criminal case citing large-scale misuse of Ukrainian property.
He said two bottles similar to the one allegedly consumed were auctioned in London in 2001 and one fetched almost $49,700 (£32,000; €44,000).
“This wine is not just the property of Crimea or Massandra but of the whole Ukrainian people”, Nazar Kholodnitsky, an official from the prosecutors’ office, said.
Massandra’s previous director Nikolay Boyko was sacked in February after Russian prosecutors filed fraud charges against him.
Ms Pavlenko is already wanted in Ukraine for treason after voting for Crimea’s annexation. That means that under Ukrainian law, giving a bottle as a gift without Ukrainian presidential permission would amount to theft.
The Massandra winery was taken over by Russian Federation along with the rest of the Crimean peninsula when Mr Putin sent thousands of special forces troops to capture the Ukrainian region previous year .
Yanina Pavlenko, the director who gave the tour last week, confirmed that she showed the rare wines to Putin and Berlusconi but declined to comment on whether any wine was drunk during the visit.
State television showed the pair walking through the wine cellars and asking questions as they were shown especially valued bottles from the collection. The director said “yes”.