On the face of it, Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin scarcely look like natural bedfellows.

Italy’s prime minister-elect is a rightwing, pro-US billionaire media and property magnate, better known for his cheap humour and political gaffes than for serious policy formulation. The Russian president – and prime minister in waiting – is supremely controlled, a cautious bureaucrat by instinct, who has restored the power of the Kremlin at the expense of some powerful business oligarchs and revived national pride by acting as a counterweight to US global influence.