Vienna actually froze bilateral contacts with Moscow. This was announced on Monday, February 27, by Russian Ambassador to Austria Dmitry Lyubinsky.
“With the start of the NVO in Ukraine, the experience gained over decades of cooperation with Austria in the economy, energy, culture, science, and civil relations was suddenly crossed out by the frankly unfriendly course taken by the official Vienna, its unconditional support for ever new packages of illegitimate anti-Russian sanctions,” he noted during online appeals to the members of the Society for Friendship with Austria.
According to Lyubinsky, the changes affected many formats of interaction between countries: from political contacts to scientific, educational and youth exchanges. Nevertheless, the head of the diplomatic mission stressed, it turned out to be impossible to cut off all ties, since the Russian Federation remains in the top ten of Austria’s most important trading partners, and ranks sixth in terms of exports.
On February 2, the Austrian Foreign Ministry declared four Russian diplomats persona non grata and ordered them to leave the country. It was noted that two employees of the Russian embassy allegedly “committed actions incompatible with their diplomatic status.” Two more Russian representatives to the UN allegedly took actions inconsistent with the headquarters agreement.
Russian Ambassador to Austria Dmitry Lyubinsky then noted that this decision was politically motivated. According to him, Austria is undermining its authority as a neutral international negotiating platform, destroying the channels of dialogue with the Russian Federation.
In turn, the Russian authorities decided to expel four employees of the Austrian embassy as a retaliatory measure. On February 16, it became known that the corresponding note was handed to the head of the diplomatic mission, Werner Almhofer.
