Current:Home > InvestShe danced with Putin at her wedding. Now the former Austrian foreign minister has moved to Russia -消息
She danced with Putin at her wedding. Now the former Austrian foreign minister has moved to Russia
View
Date:2025-04-23 09:36:31
LONDON (AP) — A former Austrian foreign minister who had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to her wedding and danced a waltz with him at the 2018 reception said she has moved to St. Petersburg to set up a think tank there.
Karin Kneissl, 58, announced on messaging app Telegram on Wednesday that her ponies, which she has been keeping in Syria, were taken to Russia on a Russian military plane.
Kneissl, from the right-wing Freedom Party, served as foreign minister from 2017 to 2019. She was repeatedly criticized in Austrian and German media during that time for her pro-Russia views. Her dance with Putin came just months after Russia was accused of poising former spy Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, with nerve agent Novichok in the United Kingdom.
Kneissl said in her post that she moved her “books, clothes and ponies from Marseille to Beirut” in June 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, after which she says she was “banished” from France.
At the Eastern Economic Forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok earlier this week, Kneissl told Russian state news agency Tass that she had set up the Gorki center — a think tank associated with the state university in St. Petersburg.
Because the think tank requires a lot of her time, she decided to move to Russia, she said.
The Gorki center, Kneissl told Tass, “deals, among other things, with issues of energy, migration and new alliances — issues in which I am well versed, which also affect the Arab and Islamic world, with which I am familiar.”
Kneissl also said on Telegram that “since apparently nothing is going on in Austria and Germany beyond the economic crisis, my relocation is becoming a political issue.” She added, in a swipe likely at her critics, that “the hatred that seeps out of Austria amazes not only me.”
In an interview at the forum with Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Kneissl said, “it’s not easy to move to Russia” because of the amount of paperwork involved but that she had already moved into an apartment she is renting in St. Petersburg.
___
Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Germany, contributed this report.
veryGood! (4)
Related
- SFO's new sensory room helps neurodivergent travelers fight flying jitters
- House Republicans request interviews with Justice Department officials in Hunter Biden probe
- With Only a Week Left in Trump’s Presidency, a Last-Ditch Effort to Block Climate Action and Deny the Science
- Flash Deal: Get $135 Worth of Tarte Cosmetics Products for Just $59
- Which apps offer encrypted messaging? How to switch and what to know after feds’ warning
- USPS is hiking the price of a stamp to 66 cents in July — a 32% increase since 2019
- Court Sides With Trump on Keystone XL Permit, but Don’t Expect Fast Progress
- Can Massachusetts Democrats Overcome the Power of Business Lobbyists and Pass Climate Legislation?
- Megan Fox's ex Brian Austin Green tells Machine Gun Kelly to 'grow up'
- Dylan Mulvaney addresses backlash from Bud Light partnership in new video
Ranking
- Average rate on 30
- How Much Global Warming Is Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Locking In?
- Biden says Supreme Court's affirmative action decision can't be the last word
- Western Coal Takes Another Hit as Appeals Court Rules Against Export Terminal
- In ‘Nickel Boys,’ striving for a new way to see
- Aging Wind Farms Are Repowering with Longer Blades, More Efficient Turbines
- Adding Batteries to Existing Rooftop Solar Could Qualify for 30 Percent Tax Credit
- A German Initiative Seeks to Curb Global Emissions of a Climate Super-Pollutant
Recommendation
Trump issues order to ban transgender troops from serving openly in the military
Bill McKibben Talks about his Life in Writing and Activism
The US Rejoins the Paris Agreement, but Rebuilding Credibility on Climate Action Will Take Time
4 States Get Over 30 Percent of Power from Wind — and All Lean Republican
What were Tom Selleck's juicy final 'Blue Bloods' words in Reagan family
Western Coal Takes Another Hit as Appeals Court Rules Against Export Terminal
Come & Get a Glimpse Inside Selena Gomez's European Adventures
Carbon capture technology: The future of clean energy or a costly and misguided distraction?