The small Republic of Austria has long enjoyed the image cultivated above all by local politicians of being a “bridge builder”, a diplomatic great in the concert of greats. Whatever may have inspired Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer, focus on one mission impossible Going to Moscow could have something to do with this self-image. And yet the ÖVP politician would have been better advised not to do it.
He did not want to remain “morally neutral,” he had said in advance – and anything else would be difficult, after Nehammer stood visibly touched at a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, exactly two days before his trip to see Vladimir Putin and saw what crimes were committed by Russians soldiers have committed there. The Chancellor also wanted to make clear to Putin what the reality outside the Kremlin looked like, the Austrian Foreign Minister confirmed. Be moral, enlighten – both are very praiseworthy and yet above all very naive.
The war crimes are intentional. The reality is known. Anyone who still believes that Putin is misinformed or misled by his courtiers denies to this day that that is exactly the Kremlin’s strategy: to destroy Ukraine and the Ukrainians. And then everyone who stands in the way of Putin and his crazy ideologues. Morality is a category that is not accepted in the Kremlin.
One must at least try to talk to Putin, say apologists and optimists; any attempt to get the man to see reason is better than giving up or even remaining silent. But even if Nehammer bravely said afterwards that the conversation was “direct, open and tough”: The Russian President will apply perfectly what the ÖVP has tried again and again at home in Austria. He will use Nehammer and his message. Or ignore. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin sets the rules.