The leader of the Italian "League of the North" Matteo Salvini is cooperating with the party of Putin "United Russia", the German edition of Bild.

"Our business would have gone better if we had our own Putin in Italy," Salvini told reporters.

One of the signs of Salvini's dependence on Russia is the following fact: as early as December 2013, when he was elected the federal secretary of the League of the North, Alexei Komov and Viktor Zubarev, two high-ranking envoys of the Putin administration, sat as honorary guests in the front ranks of the party congress in Turin. A few months later Salvini personally met with Putin for a 20-minute conversation and "admired the former KGB man," reads the article.

"The head of the League of the North" visited the annexed peninsula Crimea, demonstratively met with politicians from the EU sanctions list, willingly gave an interview to the Russian propaganda channel RT and accused NATO, and not the chief of the Kremlin and ally Assad, of aggressive behavior, "the correspondent writes..

"I consider Putin to be great, and I do not think so for money," Salvini once said, answering a question about possible subsidies from Moscow.

On one of the posters of the "League of the North" it is written: "Slaves of Europe? No, thanks". "Probably, such a slogan would be a success for Russian friends who, long ago with protocol preferences, surround the flattery of their man in Italy: during the visit to the Kremlin in March, Salvini was hosted by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov himself," reads the publication.