 sapphire earrings. Now the avowed Russophile appears to have taken her admiration of his homeland even further: Kneissl, 58, who left office in 2019, popped up last week in a tiny village deep in the Russian countryside, claiming to have been forced to move east because of her pro-Kremlin views. The former minister's new home in Petrushovo, 200 miles southeast of Moscow, is a far cry from the grand Habsburg-era palace in Vienna's Minoritenplatz over){kind=link}
In August 2018, while serving as Austria’s foreign minister, Karin Kneissl raised eyebrows by inviting Vladimir Putin to her wedding – and then waltzed with him, curtsying deeply at the end of the dance in appreciation of his deft footwork and accepting a gift of a pair of €50,000 (£43,000) sapphire earrings.
Now the avowed Russophile appears to have taken her admiration of his homeland even further: Kneissl, 58, who left office in 2019, popped up last week in a tiny village deep in the Russian countryside, claiming to have been forced to move east because of her pro-Kremlin views.
The former minister’s new home in Petrushovo, 200 miles southeast of Moscow, is a far cry from the grand Habsburg-era palace in Vienna’s Minoritenplatz over
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