Former Austrian FM ships ponies to Russia for job relocation

Austria's former Foreign Minister, Karin Kneissl, has moved to St. Petersburg to head a think tank regarding foreign policy following years of speculations on her close ties to Russia.

As reported by Die Welt, the politician, who made international headlines when she invited Russian President Putin to her wedding ceremony in Austria in 2018 against the backdrop of the tensing of ties following the Skripal poisoning case, has been on the board of Russian oil giant Rosneft but left in May of last year following the war in Ukraine. She has also been regularly appearing on the Russian news channel "Russia Today", widely prohibited from airing in Europe due to its financing by the Russian state and promotion of Kremlin propaganda.

She disclosed, that she had set up the Gorki center — a think tank associated with the state university in St. Petersburg and has therefore decided to move to Russia. According to Kneissl, the center “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”.

Following her departure from the Austrian foreign ministry she moved to Marseille, yet had to leave after being "banished" from there. She relocated to Lebanon from where she traveled to Moscow for work every month.

“Due to sanctions there are neither flights nor DHL [for the move to Russia]”, she wrote on her Telegram channel. “I therefore had the option of accompanying a Russian transport flight from Syria to Russia, for which I am very grateful”. She transported her ponies to Russia from Syria last week on a military aircraft.