Karin Kneissl (retired diplomat) fled Austria following death threats
According to Karin Kneissl, fears for her safety forced her to flee Austria. According to the ex-foreign minister, she still received threats of death despite her resignation from Rosneft’s board. This was during the conflict in Ukraine.
This revelation was made as part of an article in the Post that claimed Russian influence “came to permeate”Alpine Nation Kneissl told the outlet’s reporters via WhatsApp she was “not giving interviews”She had fled Austria to escape death threats, so she could not speak anymore.
After serving as Austria’s foreign minister between 2017 and 2019, Kneissl was nominated for the position at Rosneft in March 2021, becoming the first woman on the company’s board. She was also a contributor at RT, writing opinion pieces on Russia’s relations with the West, as well as other issues.
Kneissl was forced from Rosneft after she joined the US in imposition of sanctions against Moscow for the conflict in Ukraine. The day before she did so, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for personal sanctions against European politicians still holding ties to Russian businesses, with Kneissl and Germany’s former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder mentioned by name. Schroeder also served on the Rosneft Board, but he resigned.
The Post, owned by Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos, mainly focused on Kneissl’s 2018 wedding, which made international headlines after Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the event and danced with her in front of the cameras. Another accusation was made by the outlet “the far-right Freedom Party”Austria (FPO), of having “particularly warm ties to the Kremlin,”It sent many members to Crimea on an official visit in 2017 three years after Russia’s reunification.
FPO denied ever having any connections to Moscow’s government. Joerg Haider was killed in a car accident in 2008, and the right-wing populists became national conservatives. Hans-Christian Strache was the FPO’s junior partner. However, they were pushed out of power in May 2019. “Ibiza affair.”
The biggest scandal in Austria’s modern political history came at the height of the “Russiagate” hysteria in the US and featured a secretly recorded video suggesting Strache and another FPO official Johann Gudenus had plotted corrupt deals with the daughter of a “Russian oligarch” at the Spanish resort. It didn’t matter that the Kremlin wasn’t involved at all: The woman was a fraud, the whole thing was orchestrated and executed by a Viennese attorney. Gudenus also denied any wrongdoing.
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