Former Austrian Foreign Minister, who danced with Putin, moved to Russia and called it "truly free"

Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl has announced that she has finally moved to Russia. At the same time, the politician, who was remembered for dancing with dictator Vladimir Putin, will not change her citizenship.

This was reported by DW, quoting a news item from the Russian propaganda state media following the Austrian's performance on the sidelines of the so-called youth festival on March 3. The event, which is called the "World Youth Festival" in Russia, is held by decree of dictator Vladimir Putin.

"I moved to Russia because it is a truly free country," Kneissl said at one of her lectures.

According to her, she has already "looked at one place in eastern Russia where I would like to build a house" to stay there, as she does not consider herself a city dweller.

At the same time, the former Austrian foreign minister said that she does not plan to apply for a Russian passport, believing that the rights and obligations conferred by citizenship should be associated with only one country.

"You can't just change your citizenship. And if I do, I will have to choose one citizenship. Maybe I'm too conservative, but having two at once is like living in polygamy and being married to two people," Kneissl compared.

According to media reports, in August 2023, the Austrian woman rented a house in the village of Petrushovo in the Ryazan region of the Russian Federation. In the past, she lived for some time in Seibersdorf in Lower Austria, where she ran a small farm.

In July 2022, the American newspaper The Washington Post published an article in which it reported that the former Austrian foreign minister had left her country because of threats. On the same day, Kneissl herself explained in a comment on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that she had left Austria in September 2020 due to "constant attacks." At the end of May 2022, it became known that Kneissl had resigned from her position on the board of directors of the Russian state-owned concern Rosneft, which she had held for about a year.

It should be noted that Karin Kneissl was born in 1965 in Vienna, studied at the University of Vienna, and served as Austrian Foreign Minister from 2017 to 2019. Austrians criticized her for continuing to work for Rosneft despite Russia's war against Ukraine.

In August 2018, 53-year-old Kneissl married businessman Wolfgang Meilinger. She invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the wedding: he brought "Cossacks" with him, presented the couple with a painting with rural motifs, an old oil press and a Tula samovar, made a toast in German and danced with the bride. At the time, she told the media that she had "spontaneously" invited her government colleagues and the Kremlin leader, who was on a visit to Austria at the time, to the party.

On June 17, 2023, Der Spiegel reported that the former minister had become the head of the G.O.R.K.I. Center at St. Petersburg State University, which bills itself as a "Geopolitical Observatory on Key Problems of Russia's Development."

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, in August 2022, Karin Kneissl published a scandalous post in support of Russia, which was already waging a full-scale war against Ukraine. She compared Russian dictator Putin to Lenin and European politicians to "peasants humiliated before him."

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