Ministry taciturn

Fuss over Vienna visit by a senior Putin representative

Mikhail Shvydkoy with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to the US in 2005.

(Bild: AFP)

After a meeting in Slovakia, a cultural representative of the Kremlin traveled on to Vienna at the beginning of this week. Appointments with representatives of official Austria were apparently canceled at the last minute, which Russia strongly criticized. The Foreign Ministry has not yet answered whether the Kremlin representative was issued a visa.

The Russian President's special representative for international cultural cooperation, Mikhail Shvydkoy, who has been in office since 2008, was in Vienna at the beginning of the week, where he had planned to meet representatives of official Austria, according to his own statements. However, all meetings were canceled at the last minute, the high-ranking Kremlin bureaucrat and former culture minister told the Russian state news agencies RIA Novosti and TASS on Monday.

The official, who is not affected by European sanctions, is probably the highest-ranking Kremlin envoy to come to Austria since the start of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Given the role that Russia plays in Austria's history and the great importance of cultural and educational contacts with Austria, canceling the meetings is a short-sighted position.

Michail Schwydkoj, amtierender Sondervertreter des russischen Präsidenten für internationale Kulturzusammenarbeit

Speech at Brahmsplatz
As part of his "official visit" to Austria, Shvydkoy had initially met around 20 members of the Russian community at the Cultural Institute on Brahmsplatz in Vienna on Monday morning. According to those present, he emphasized in a short speech that there would be no changes to the political course in Moscow after the presidential elections on Sunday.

Requests for subsidies
Representatives of Russian cultural and educational projects in Austria then approached the Kremlin bureaucrat for almost two hours with specific requests for support and subsidies. On Tuesday, one of the observers who had been invited to the meeting in the first days of March described how the president's representative had made notes in a small notepad.

"Passing the ball"
"There were now preliminary, very preliminary agreements on meetings with colleagues representing official Austrian structures, but unfortunately everyone canceled at the last moment," Shvydkoy told the RIA Novosti news agency afterwards. He also spoke of a recent "passing of balls" at the level of Austrian government agencies, which he did not specify further. In view of the role that Russia plays in Austria's history and the great importance of cultural and educational contacts with Austria, the cancellation of the meetings was a "short-sighted position". As difficult as the present may be, it is necessary to think about the future, the Russian explained.

Mikhail Shvydkoy in 1997 with then Russian President Boris Yeltsin

(Bild: AFP)

At the same time, the special representative emphasized to news agencies that the new Slovakian Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová had lifted a ban on cooperation with Russian cultural institutions. A spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Austria explained on Tuesday that, according to his information, Shvydkoy had traveled on from Vienna to Bratislava.

There were no appointments with representatives of the Foreign Ministry.

Eine Sprecherin des österreichischen Außenministeriums

Foreign Ministry tight-lipped
"There were no appointments with representatives of the Foreign Ministry," explained a spokeswoman for the Austrian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday evening. She left unanswered the question of whether the ministry had been aware of the planned and ultimately canceled meetings with the Kremlin representative. However, she explicitly refused to answer the question of whether Schwydkoj had traveled to Vienna with an Austrian Schengen visa: "Information on individual administrative procedures, including visa procedures, is subject to data protection regulations."

"We can rule out the possibility that anyone from the Arts and Culture Section would have envisaged such a meeting," emphasized a spokesperson for State Secretary for Arts and Culture Andrea Mayer on Wednesday. 

NEOS demand clarification
"How can it be that someone from Putin's closest circle can simply enter Austria unchallenged?" criticized National Council member Stephanie Krisper in a statement on Wednesday afternoon. The NEOS spokesperson for internal affairs called for "urgent clarification" and described the Foreign Ministry's reference to data protection in this context as a "farce". The liberal politician announced that she would also address open questions to the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN) in the standing subcommittee of the Committee on Internal Affairs on Thursday. At the same time, she once again called for the closure of the Russian cultural institute.

Close contacts with Austria
In his many years as special representative of the Russian president for international cultural cooperation, the former culture minister and television producer Shvydkoy repeatedly had close contacts with Austria. In June 2019, for example, he held public discussions in St. Petersburg with the Director General of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Sabine Haag, the co-chair of the Austrian-Russian Sochi Dialogue, which was suspended in 2022, Christoph Leitl, and the then Head of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow, Simon Mraz. Haag and Mraz let it be known that they had not met the Kremlin bureaucrat in Vienna.