Karin Kneissl became famous for dancing with Putin. She has now lived in Lebanon since 2022 and decided to settle in Saint Petersburg to assume the presidency of a new university think tank.
The former Austrian foreign minister, known for having waltzed with Vladimir Putin, will live in Russia after traveling with her ponies on an organized flight from a Russian air base in Syria.
Appointed by the far right to Foreign Affairs between December 2017 and May 2019, Karin Kneissl had been living in Lebanon since 2022 and decided to settle in Saint Petersburg to assume the presidency of a new university think tank.
The investigative website ‘The Insider’ reported this Tuesday on the flight that Karin Kneissl made last week with her ponies between the Hmeimim base, in Syria, and the Saint Petersburg airport.
The 58-year-old former minister tried to justify herself today by saying that it was “impossible [para si] driving a truck through Syria taking into account the circumstances of the war,” he explained to the France Presse news agency.
“Due to the sanctions, there are no DHL flights or (transport) services,” he also clarified on the social network Telegram, expressing surprise at the fact that “his measure is becoming a political issue.”
Karin Kneissl made headlines in 2018 when she invited the Russian president to her wedding, while she was responsible for Austrian diplomacy, during which they danced a waltz.
Media close to the Kremlin published the images, which went around the world, of the bride dancing the waltz with the Russian president, whom she treated with deep reverence.
Following her departure from the government, Karin Kneissl joined the board of directors of the Russian oil giant Rosneft in 2021, a position she left in May 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine.
Very controversial in her country, Karin Kneissl moved to France in September 2020, however, she claims to have been pressured to leave and then temporarily settled in a small town in Lebanon.
Source: Observadora
