this interview that was done between a BBC reporter Steve Rosenberg and the former Austrian foreign minister who had a party with Vladimir Putin they hosted a party with Vladimir Putin and was always known as very friendly with Vladimir Putin and is now living in Russia H they were so close that Putin actually made it to her wedding now I have been very critical of Austrian neutrality um I don't talk about it often but the few times I've talked about it I've been very critical of it I think the austrians should be more supportive of Ukraine but once you see uh the type of people that were holding the position of Austrian foreign minister just like four or five years ago is not that hard to figure out like yeah Austria's are far away from uh being a stout supporter of Ukraine our Austrian uh neutrality is embedded deep imploded in uh May 2019 and I wanted to restart my life as an analyst as a university teacher and I had to find out that there was not a single contract left and that was political pressure so when you don't have a single contract it was not really easy to to restart in Spring this year I received to the offer by the director of St Petersburg University whether I would like to run an interdisciplinary Institute and they mentioned what they would like to see in there and for one night I was doing brainstorming with myself and I created the name gki which is the acronym for geopolitical Observatory for Russia's key issues do you understand that it is hugely controversial for a former Austrian foreign minister to move to Russia at a time when when this country has launched an unprovoked four scale invasion of its neighbor of Ukraine isn't there a danger that by being here you are legitimizing the The Invasion the war and also the domestic repression that takes place in Russia well I so far I have not seen any sort of repression in my immediate surrounding I can work here in a kind of uh academic freedom man I guess that says something about number one the words that you're saying you're not saying anything that that's challenging to the regime and number two the circles you're running in if you haven't seen that type of repression in your immediate area which I started missing when I was still teaching at various universities in just a few days ago in in this city not far away from this building a young Russian woman was uh sent to prison for 7even years for replacing some price tags in a super Market with anti-war slogans um there is definitely uh a wave of repression taking place in Russia yeah and so what do I have to do with that I just explained at length uh the situation that I have been going through so let us put it the whole thing to the other way why was Karen kle forbidden to work where is my crime but do you condemn The Invasion sir uh if you have uh seen uh my interview with your colle Steven sucker I answered his interrogation and I'm not interested in having another interrogation I'm asking you whether the Russian invasion is in your view entirely illegal like any outbreak of war is a violation of international law yes that I just ripped like any outbreak of war is a violation of against international law that's not a condemnation that's just saying that international law has broken down that's all that is that's not putting any fault on the Russian government for invading that's not saying that anyone is particularly at fault and it's not a it's anything but a condemnation it's just an acknowledgment of the situation like that would be like saying yes Russian troops have entered Ukraine if someone asked me if I condemn the Russian invasion if somebody asked me Dylan do you condemn condemn the German invasion of Poland and I was like I mean German soldiers have marched on Warsaw that is a that is a statement fact that I didn't condemn any I'm just acknowledging what's happening it's just that you're now living so now she's living in Russia and before she wouldn't even condemn it and so now she's certainly not going to condemn it and if you're not willing to condemn it or don't care about condemning The Invasion then it's not that surprising that you know she hasn't seen much repression in her immediate surroundings because she's not surrounded by anybody saying anything that could get them you know repressed and then I was traveling to Russia and your esteemed colleague Mr Saka did this interrogation with me BBC did it already but you're studying the geopolitical situation right and you can't look at the geopolitical situation in Europe or the world without focusing on the the war in Ukraine surely that is which has turned the world upside down no I don't wouldn't say that has turned to word upside down honestly not having written about geop itics for 25 years I would say a war that has definitely turned toward world upside down is the war in Iraq okay so the invasion of Iraq destroyed the world but the invasion of Ukraine didn't for what reason I don't know it just did one one threw the world upside down the other didn't okay well thank you I guess 2018 um we had the Salsbury poisonings right then dozens of Russian dipl highly likely highly likely yeah to take the British term but it was linked to the Russian State yes highly likely doesn't so you don't believe that they I don't know it's I just quote the British uh authorities highly likely but just a few months after of course you invited Vladimir Putin to your wedding and you danced with him and you cursed to him you understand how controversial that must have been then yeah by the time I was the foreign minister and by the time I danced with President Putin but you see I've have done other things in my life before and after and honestly it's so yes before the time I had Putin come and celebrate and dance at my wedding but I have grown so much since then after I moved to Russia and refused to condemn The Invasion I've grown so much boring honestly it's very boring to talk about the wedding yes yes so we should just I mean I think there are other more interesting topics we can discuss honestly you have no I I consider it as honestly boring and the dog just fell asleep and was snoring because he knows the topic the dog's not interested but people are amazed still I'm not saying that Vladimir Putin is your close friend but you've met him you've met him from your meetings with him what kind of a person do you think he is he is the most intelligent gentlemen with to focus on gentlemen oh my God and um is I mean I've I would say that dog the realist school of thought what are you guys doing what are the realists doing man ah it's doing up it's a messing everything up in the sense of what Jane Austin wrote about the accomplished gentleman in Pride and Prejudice he he amounts to this uh standards this um idea of President Putin as a sort of a Jane Austin gentleman might surprise some when you consider what's happened over in recent years yes I I stick to this statement he's the most intelligent and accomplished gentleman I ever met wow W okay then objectively can can you gentlemanly what's it what's the gentleman's way of kidnapping children can anybody give me a what's a gentleman's Death Pit Mass grave look like we're seeing uh a wave of domestically and we've seen Russia invade Ukraine it's hard to classify that as a gentlemanly action well Tony Blair Cameron um they all were involved with the governments being uh involved in military actions Libya um Syria by the way Russia uh bombs Syria and bomb Syrian hospitals Russia also abstained from the Libya vote allowing the UN intervention inter intervention to take place finally I mean you say that um there are people in Austria who've accused you or accuse you of high treason accuse you of being a Russian spy a Russian spy can you to an extent understand no not to an inch not to not even to an inch I don't understand it it's just dirty fantasy dirty fantasy nobody no nobody knows why nobody nobody can figure out why nobody will ever know why it's a it's a mystery we're we're all just left guessing