Austrian Foreign Minister Karl Nehammer has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine during a conversation that was far from “a friendly visit”, but rather a “direct, frank and very tough” dialogue.
Nehammer is the first head of government of the European Union to meet with Putin since he gave the order to invade Ukraine on February 24. After this meeting, the Austrian Foreign Minister said that the most important message sent to the Russian leader was “that this war must finally end” because “in a war there are only losers on both sides”.
“It was not a friendly visit,” said Nehammer in a statement issued by the Government and echoed by the Austrian media. “I discussed serious war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere and emphasized that all those responsible must be held accountable,” he said.
In turn, the Chancellor also conveyed to Putin that sanctions against Russia will not only be maintained, but are subject to broadening and tightening as long as Russian aggression on Ukrainian territory continues.
“I will now inform our European partners again about my conversation with the Russian president and we will discuss the next steps,” he finally added after the meeting, which lasted about 75 minutes.
The Guardian newspaper claimed that Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said today that the chancellor would tell Putin that “he is isolating Russia, that he will lose this war morally and that he is doing everything wrong that can be done wrong.”
Schallenberg added that the trip aimed to call for humanitarian corridors to be established to alleviate the “hell” that the campaign had caused in Ukraine.
The conversation between the two takes place after the Austrian's trip to Kiev this weekend, where he visited some of the towns where alleged rape and war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces have been reported.
While Austria generally maintains closer ties with Moscow than many other EU countries, that has not been the case recently.
Nehammer has expressed solidarity with Ukraine over the Russian invasion and denounced apparent Russian war crimes there. His government also joined other EU countries in expelling Russian diplomats from Vienna.
(with information from AFP, EFE, EP and AP)
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