Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, who danced with Vladimir Putin at his wedding in 2018, said she eventually moved to Russia because she considers it a free country, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

“I moved to Russia because it is a really free country,” said the ex-head of Austrian diplomacy at a conference within the framework of the World Youth Festival, organized in the Sirius federal territory south of Sochi.

Kneisl said that he is “looking for a place in the east of Russia where he would like to build a house” where he wants to live from now on.

Kneisl also said that she already feels at home in Russia. “I feel human warmth. I learned Russian, but I still don’t speak Russian very confidently,” Putin’s “fiancee” added.

Last September, Russian state media reported that Austria’s former foreign minister was moving to St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin’s hometown, to run an academic center, Reuters reported.

Karin Kneissl heads the Gorky Center – the Geopolitical Observatory on Key Issues of Russia – at St. Petersburg University, TASS reports. In fact, she is listed on the website of the Geopolitical Observatory on Key Issues of Russia as the director of this research institute at St. Petersburg University.

Karin Kneissl was also in the media spotlight in August 2023, when it was revealed that she rented a house in a village in Russia. “Grandfathers, apples, summer, swimming in the river. It’s a good life. I don’t need Maldives or Seychelles. It’s better,” said Karin Kneissl in an interview with TASS.

As the ex-head of Austrian diplomacy, he caused a European scandal

A former Austrian foreign minister from 2017 to 2019, Kneisl caused a European scandal five years ago when she invited Vladimir Putin to her wedding, and was photographed dancing with the Kremlin leader just months after the European Union expelled dozens of Russian diplomats after being poisoned by “Novachko”. former double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain.

Putin gave the bride flowers, gifts and danced with her at the wedding, which took place in the south of Austria, near the border with Slovenia. The Russian president was accompanied by an orchestra of Cossacks who sang for the guests.

Kneisl was appointed head of Austrian diplomacy without being a member of any political party, with a career in academia behind her. She was nominated for the post of foreign minister by the FPO, the Austrian Freedom Party, a far-right party that was part of the ruling coalition in Vienna at the time.

She was left without political support after former chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s first cabinet collapsed following a vote of no confidence.

In the summer of 2021, Kneisl was appointed to the board of directors of Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company, after being nominated for the position by the Russian government a few months earlier.

She resigned last May after the European Union threatened to impose sanctions on former European officials who hold positions in Russia. Kneisl left Rosneft 3 days after former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who was the chairman of the board of the oil company.

At the time, Rosneft noted that they count on future cooperation with Kneissl “as a prominent representative of the international community of experts.”

On his personal website, Kneisl notes that he left his native country in September 2020 due to death threats and a “de facto ban on working in Austria.” She said that in recent years she lived on a farm in France and also in northern Lebanon before moving “temporarily” to Russia.

However, Kneisl is only one of many Austrian officials who have been close to Moscow over the years, and the country’s neutral stance has often drawn criticism. Ties between Vienna and Moscow have remained strong even after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, with Austria remaining one of the few European countries still importing gas from Russia.

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