She once curtsied to Putin
Former Foreign Minister Kneissl moves to St. Petersburg
September 12, 2023, 11:30 a.m
A curtsy made her world famous: at her wedding, the then Austrian Foreign Minister Kneissl bowed deeply to Russian President Putin. Now she’s moving to his hometown to head a “geopolitical observatory on Russia’s key issues.”
According to a media report, Austria’s former Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl is moving to St. Petersburg to head a state-affiliated academic center. This was reported by the Russian state news agency TASS.
Karin Kneissl had to take a lot of criticism for this kink.
(Photo: picture alliance / ROLAND SCHLAGER / APA / picturedesk.com)
Kneissl, who was foreign minister from late 2017 to June 2019, will head the Gorki think tank, according to the report. The name of the center, located at the University of St. Petersburg, stands for “Geopolitical Observatory on Russia’s Key Issues.” “I co-founded the Gorki Center and run it,” Kneissl told TASS. “Since there is a lot of work there that requires a lot of attention, I cannot do this on the side. I decided to move to St. Petersburg for this work.” St. Petersburg is also the hometown of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kneissl is highly controversial because of her relationship with Putin. The non-party politician invited Putin to her wedding in Austria in the summer of 2018. The invitation caused irritation nationally and internationally. A photo was also taken there that shows her curtsying to the Kremlin chief after a dance together. Kneissl subsequently defended her behavior against criticism.
The 58-year-old former diplomat and Middle East expert was, among other things, a guest author at the Russian state broadcaster RT and a supervisory board member at the oil giant Rosneft, the board of which was chaired by Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. She had to resign from this position in May 2022.
Kneissl praises Russian rural life
Just a month ago she was enthusiastic about rural life in Russia. Like the Russian platform Vidsboku reported that she praised life there highly at a festival in a Russian village. It was a “super good atmosphere,” she said in halting Russian at the festival. She liked how the children played. The ducks, geese, goats – that is also their world. At the same time, she explains, her language skills are still “young and small”. According to the report, Kneissl spent the summer in a Russian village in central Russia, several hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Kneissl, who is loyal to the Kremlin, apparently sees herself as a victim of anti-Russian propaganda. On her homepage she writes that she left her homeland “involuntarily” as a result of persistent death threats and a de facto ban on working in Austria. She has since moved to France and Lebanon. “The media agitation from Austria” has also reached France.