President Putin and Premier-elect Berlusconi are meeting in Sardinia. Old allies on the international stage, the two men have a ‘chemistry between them’, says Beatrice Ottaviano, bureau chief of an Italian news agency Nazionale Stampa Associata.

New Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi kicks off his foreign policy programme by meeting President Putin. The pair have enjoyed a long and warm relationship. RAI correspondent Carlo Lo Savio explains what they have in common.

Moscow will host talks this summer aimed at brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Irina Zvyagelskaya from the Institute of Oriental Studies discusses the relevance of the summit.

President Putin is in Libya to sign major financial and economic deals with Muammar Gaddafi.The director of the conventional arms programme at the Centre for policy studies, Vadim Kozyulin, puts them in context.