The ex-head of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, who left for the Russian Federation, does not plan to change her citizenship

The former head of the Foreign Ministry of Austria, Karin Kneisl, who recently moved to the Ryazan village and headed the center at St. Petersburg State University, does not plan to obtain Russian citizenship.

“I want to emphasize that I do not have any second citizenship, except Austrian, and I did not ask for Russian,” said Kneisl, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria from 2017 to 2019 and was a member of the board of directors of Rosneft from 2021 to 2022 hours

The director of the academy in Vienna, where she taught for 20 years, proposed that Kneisl leave her Austrian citizenship, after rumors that she wanted to get a Russian passport. “They said that I was harmful to Austria because I teach at St. Petersburg State University,” added Kneisl.

Kneisl left Austria in 2022, as she explains, because of threats. First, she moved to Lebanon because she “knows this country well and speaks Arabic.” In June 2023, it became known that Kneisl headed the GORKI (Geopolitical Observatory for Russia Key Issues) center created at St. Petersburg State University. The center will monitor and analyze geopolitical issues that have an impact on the development of Russia. The presentation of the center took place at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

After that, 58-year-old Kneisl moved to the village of Petrushovo in the Ryazan region, where she rented a house until the end of the summer. “We’ll see. I don’t know anything about my future, nothing,” she said in an interview with RBC, noting that at her age it’s “not easy” to start over.