Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer had a face-to-face meeting with Putin to discuss the Russian war in Ukraine and Russia’s future intentions.
Austrian Chancellor Putin Meeting Results
In an after-meeting interview on the Meet the Press show on April 16, 2022, Chancellor Nehammer reported that, in a “frank and tough” discussion, that Putin has his own view of the war and the present situation.
“I made it clear to Mr. Putin, his attitude, his view is not shared by anybody,” Nehammer said during a press briefing in Moscow. “He sees it as a kind of self-defense operation of the Russian federation. He calls it special military operations. I call it the war.”
On why Russia is at war with Ukraine, Chancellor Nehammer said,
“I think he is now in his own war logic. He thinks the war is necessary for security guarantees for the Russian Federation. He doesn’t the international community. He blames Ukrainians for genocide in the Donbas region.”
On Putin’s current assessment of the war, Nehammer stated that
“he believes he is winning the war.”
Finally, Nehammer reported that Putin would cooperate with an international war crimes investigation but that Putin “doesn’t trust the Western world”, which indicates that while Russia might share information with such an investigation, it might not accept the findings of such an investigation.
There is a fundamental break between Putin and the West, and it’s important to remember that Putin is a long-time member of Russia’s KGB and has engaged in many disinformation campaigns, so one must always remember to take what politicians like Putin say with a healthy dose of skepticism. There is a difference between what a politician truly believes, what they say for the benefit of the entity they represent, and what they say to make themselves look good.
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