(Moscow) Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer was received by Vladimir Putin on Monday, a first for a European leader since the start of the intervention in Ukraine, according to a press release issued by his cabinet after the meeting.
Posted at 12:14 p.m.
“The discussion with President Putin was frank, open and difficult,” Nehammer said after the meeting, which lasted just over an hour and did not result in a handshake, according to the press. Austrian.
“I spoke about the serious war crimes in Boutcha and other places, saying that all those responsible must be brought to justice”, added the Austrian Chancellor.
Boutcha is a locality near Kyiv that has become a symbol of atrocities, where Karl Nehammer went this weekend like other Western officials. Moscow has firmly rejected any involvement.
“I made it clear to the Russian President the urgency of setting up humanitarian corridors to transport water and food and to evacuate women, children and the wounded from besieged cities”, underlined the Chancellor, insisting that it was “not a friendly visit”.
The interview took place in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow.
No image has filtered from the meeting and no joint press conference is planned. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, this closed-door format was chosen at the initiative of the Austrian side.
Karl Nehammer says he now wants to meet with his European counterparts to inform them of this meeting and discuss the next steps, while the European Union (EU) is currently preparing new sanctions.
The Austrian conservative chancellor went to Moscow on his own initiative after visiting Ukraine. He “has no European mandate”, his Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said earlier on Monday.
Mr. Nehammer was to explain to Vladimir Putin that he “is isolating Russia, that he is going to lose this war morally, and that he is doing everything that should not be done”, reported the head of the diplomacy.
“Any voice that makes President Putin understand what the reality is outside the Kremlin walls is not a lost voice,” he said, while acknowledging that “no one is waiting for a miracle”.
The chancellor’s move was decided after talks in Kyiv on Saturday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and discussions with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as heads of EU institutions Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel .