Putin dropped in on Karin Kneissl’s wedding in a remote area of southern Austria, on his way to a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in neighboring Germany later that day.
The Russian president was pictured dancing with Kneissl, who was dressed in a traditional “dirndl” dress, in a vineyard in Styria province.
Putin arrived with a bouquet of flowers and even brought a Cossack choir with him to entertain the bride and her groom, the entrepreneur Wolfgang Meilinger, according to Russian state-run news agency TASS.
Invitation ‘symbolic and harmful’
Added to this, was the expulsion of Russian diplomats from many EU countries earlier this year. That move was a response to British allegations of Kremlin involvement in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury in March.
Joerg Leichtfried, from the opposition Social Democrats party, criticized the foreign minister for inviting Putin, particularly given Austria’s current presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Foreign Minister Kneissl is not known to have a particularly close friendship with Putin, reported Reuters.
In an earlier version of this story we incorrectly stated Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s political party.
Source : Nbcnewyork