Austria’s Chancellor Nehammer with Putin in Moscow

Visits to Russia by high-ranking foreign politicians have become a rarity since February 24. No representative of an EU member state has traveled to Vladimir Putin since then – Karl Nehammer, the Austrian Chancellor, was the first on Monday. This gave the meeting a lot of publicity, even though it was held in secret, at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow and without media. The Austrian side deliberately decided not to hold a joint press conference. The concern that the Kremlin and state propaganda would then be able to use Nehammer’s visit for their own purposes all the more easily apparently prevailed. Look here, Putin is receiving guests from the West, and he is not as united as he wants to demonstrate – nobody in Vienna wanted to give this message a media platform.

Perplexity about the purpose of the visit

On Saturday the Chancellor met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv and visited the Bucha suburb, whose name has become a symbol of the atrocities in Ukraine. Nehammer spoke to Putin about the need for a ceasefire, war crimes and humanitarian corridors for the civilian population.

The meeting of the two politicians apparently lasted around 75 minutes. It was not a “friendly visit”; the conversation was very hard and open, said Nehammer afterwards. The war in Ukraine must end and the sanctions remain in force and will be tightened as long as people are killed; he said that to Putin. He didn’t sound confident.

The idea of ​​the trip had left many observers at a loss. It did not seem as if the Austrian Chancellor had gone to Moscow in consultation with or even on behalf of Ukraine or the European Union; the Russian leadership had not yet sent out any signals indicating a desire for some kind of European mediation mission. However, Nehammer emphasized how important it is, despite everything, to put forward the messages from the West in direct discussions. On the contrary, Josep Borrell, who is responsible for foreign relations, once again made a laughingstock of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with his statement that the only solution to the war in Ukraine was military action.

The well-known strategy expert Fyodor Lukyanov wrote about this in his Telegram channel, by concentrating on military aid to Ukraine, the EU has effectively severed the old channels of communication and declared war on Russia. Nehammer’s trip to Moscow was either the last, but hardly successful attempt to avert the rupture of the ties, or the formalization of the military state of relations.

Russia wants “victory”

However, with its decision to throw internationally respected foreign non-governmental organizations that are important for exchange with Europe and the development of its own society out of the country, the Russian leadership has just shown how little interest it still has in these connections. This works very well internally because it sells the heavy sanctions imposed by the West as the reason for the breakdown in relations and not the war against Ukraine that has been softened as a “special military operation”.

The Kremlin does not want this “military operation” to end in a dead end, but rather in an alleged triumph that may even be announced in time for May 9, the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. Putin is undeterred by European peace initiatives. However, the regime is committed to trying to find a peace solution in Istanbul.

Demonstratively confident signals were sent out two weeks ago by the talks that began in Belarus and are being conducted on the Russian side by the mediocre former Minister of Culture and current Presidential Advisor Vladimir Medinski. Their weight had probably always been light; but then the horrors of Bucha and other Ukrainian places, which had been held by Russian troops for weeks, came to light and hardened the positions on the Ukrainian side as well.

Radicalization of Russian rhetoric

On the Russian side, Medinsky and Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who appears in the Western media, came under pressure from the patriotic “Party of War” within the Russian leadership and society as alleged “defaitists”. The rhetoric also became sharper: meanwhile, more and more often no distinction is made between the “Nazi” and “nationalist battalions”, the Kiev leadership and the population. They all become “Nazis” because they resist the Russian occupation vigorously.

Dehumanization justifies any brutality. The state media reports on all channels with reporters embedded in the army about the successful advance, the helpfulness of the soldiers and the merciless opponents – the war as a “reality show” in Russia’s living rooms. There is no place for peace sounds.