Russian President Vladimir Putin made a flying visit to Austria to attend the wedding of the country’s foreign minister on Saturday, before heading to Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Austrian authorities imposed tight security measures around the site of the ceremony near the southern border with Slovenia, where foreign minister Karin Kneissl married her partner Wolfgang Meilinger, a businessman.
Kneissl, an independent, was nominated by the pro-Russia Austrian Freedom Party, whose leaders also attended the wedding.
According to Austrian public broadcaster ORF, Putin also took a small Cossack men’s choir along to entertain about 100 guests at the wedding.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that the Russian president spent about an hour at the wedding.
Peskov said Putin proposed “quite a long toast in German in which he said he was thankful and happy that he got a chance to visit the hospitable Austria”.
Austrian politician Joerg Leichtfried of the opposition Social Democratic Party criticised Kneissl’s decision to invite Putin to the wedding.
Austria currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.
With protesters audible outside the guesthouse, Putin also raised the issue of humanitarian aid and funding for international reconstruction in Syria.
“It’s important to help those areas that the refugees can return to,” he said. “I think it’s in everyone’s interests, including Europe’s.”
Merkel said the talks would also touch on the possibility of establishing a United Nations mission to help bring about peace in Ukraine.
