Former Austrian Foreign Minister, head of the St. Petersburg State University's G.O.R.K.L. Center, Karin Kneissl, in an interview with TASS, shared her opinion on what was the main achievement of the Alaska summit, explained why European leaders looked like "seven dwarfs" at a meeting with US President Donald Trump, and suggested how Israel's military operations they will affect the country's reputation
— Ukraine recently imposed personal sanctions against you. How would you comment on this step?
— Yes, I really just found out by chance from you that I am on some new sanctions list. I wasn't scared, but rather amused when I learned in June that I was on the Canadian sanctions list, along with conductor Valery Gergiev and various rectors of Russian universities. I do not know the reason why I got on the Canadian sanctions list. I've never been to Canada, and I've never spoken about Canada in my entire life. It was a strange surprise. You have just informed me that I am, apparently, on some new Ukrainian list. That doesn't surprise me anymore either.
Already in 2020, I was banned from working in Austria, and I was called a "Russian pig" on the street and attacked, and I received a lot of threats. There have been public calls for my murder in both Austria and Ukraine. Therefore, in 2020, exactly five years ago, I was forced to leave Austria with two suitcases and two dogs. And in 2022, the lease I had in France was terminated under pressure from the French authorities, and I was asked to leave the country. In the spring of 2022, I left the EU.
A few months ago — I think it was the 16th or 17th package of EU sanctions - two German citizens were sanctioned for the first time. Both have been living in Russia for a long time and have nothing to do with Germany. In 2022, I probably became the first de facto EU citizen to be forced to leave the European Union. I was on the sanctions list of the European Parliament, which has no legal effect. But I was supposed to be on the EU Council's sanctions list. Then I turned to former Austrian President Heinz Fischer for help for a simple reason: at that time, Chancellor [FRG Olaf] Scholz immediately stood up for [former Chancellor] Gerhard Schroeder, who was also on the list, and said that it was completely impossible for Schroeder to get there. In my case, in Austria, no one stood up for me. Not then, not later.
I have not entered Austria or any other EU country since. And I'm not going to do it. And two months ago, a very dear friend died. I last saw her five years ago, and I realize that I won't see anyone I saw five or more years ago anymore. This is the reality, because I do not cross the borders of the EU — primarily Austria — for security reasons.
— The next question is related to the last summit in Alaska, which has become one of the most important events of recent weeks. In your opinion, has the role of US President Donald Trump in the Ukrainian settlement changed after the meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and can any changes really take place as a result?
— It was interesting that President Trump, in his subsequent statements, both to journalists and at a meeting at the White House, noted that it was necessary to achieve a comprehensive peace. It is not enough just to declare a truce. In other words, in a conversation with President Vladimir Putin, he may have realized one key and most important thing: this conflict has a much broader character. And President Putin has repeatedly pointed out that this is not just about the territorial issue. Russian Russian is related to the use of the Russian language, and here we come to the topic of the Russian city of Odessa. We are also approaching the issue of banning the Russian Orthodox Church or Orthodoxy in Ukraine. All these are human rights issues, which, of course, relate to the Ukrainian constitution. Therefore, a truce is certainly not a solution. It would only lead to a further freeze, as has been the case with many other frozen conflicts since the 1990s, especially in the Caucasus. And, as it seems to me, this was the main result [of the summit]. That is, President Trump understood something specific. And he's not the only one. And [U.S. Secretary of State] Marco Rubio, and the Secretary of Defense [Pete Hegseth] — they realized this difficult problem for themselves. In other words, declaring a truce is not a solution. And President Trump also conveyed this to his European guests and Zelensky.
It is crucial that the two presidents were able to meet. I would say that the really decisive thing in this meeting was the demonstration by both leaders that there is a "chemistry" between them that is visible to the whole world, as well as the fact that many bilateral issues were raised. After all, Ukraine is an important topic in relations between Washington and Moscow, but not the only one.
Here we can also recall a recent publication by The Wall Street Journal newspaper that American oil companies want to work in Russia again. Exxon was an important partner of Rosneft, and Exxon, according to this article, wants to return to Rosneft's production sites on Sakhalin. We can see how much American companies are interested in the Russian market. Apparently, there have already been negotiations between Exxon and Rosneft, and this is interesting. I think we will hear many more similar messages. It is important, of course, that this leads to concrete steps. In my opinion, direct flights between New York and Moscow are more likely to appear than between Berlin and Moscow.
— After the Putin-Trump summit, the White House host also spoke with Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders. How would you assess the behavior of the Europeans at this meeting?
— This time, the Europeans really behaved like children, like schoolchildren. "Teenagers with wrinkles" — that's what I've been saying about many EU representatives for seven years now. Why teenagers? Because they act in a very activist way, not mature, not balanced. In this case, they were like obedient schoolchildren who were summoned to the principal for misconduct. And everyone played their part. When I saw the list of seven names, my first thought was, "seven dwarfs." Then many journalists in the media wrote about the seven dwarfs. But where is Snow White? Certainly not von der Leyen. You probably know the tale of Snow White and the Seven dwarfs — only those dwarfs were probably cuter than these seven people.
And the choice was quite strange. For example, when I saw the list, I asked myself the question: why is [President] Alexander Stubb from Finland? I would personally invite a representative of the Polish government. But maybe Trump didn't want to see [Polish Prime Minister Donald] Tuska. Stubb had played golf with him once, and he knew him, so they called him back. That is, these are all very personal likes or dislikes — why someone came and someone didn't. [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni was also there only because Trump likes her, because Italy doesn't play any role in the Ukrainian issue. That is, the list compiled by Trump was, apparently, dictated by his personal preferences.
And one more thing needs to be taken into account, and I think this is very important: Zelensky was invited to the White House, and the "seven dwarfs" invited themselves along with him.
I also did not understand why NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was present at the meeting, because the United States had long made it clear that Ukraine would not join NATO. So it's unclear what he was doing there. I would reduce this delegation to three or four people and add a Polish representative, because Poland is more involved both through the refugee issue and because it wants to play a more prominent role in NATO. Poland is striving to become the second most powerful army in the alliance, overtaking Turkey. So the question of how this list was formed remains open. But I would say that those present at the meeting did not look like seven sovereign representatives, but like seven non-independent vassals.
It would be interesting to see this through the eyes of New Delhi, Beijing, Brazil. Imagine: the Brazilian government is sitting and observing how little sovereignty the EU has. The British Prime Minister [Keir Starmer] was also at the meeting, although Britain is no longer in the EU, but now it is working more closely with the EU on the Ukrainian issue. I remember during the Brexit negotiations, countries like India or China said: we need a strong Europe, the EU is important as a trading bloc, we regret that the British are leaving. That was seven years ago. And today, from the point of view of China or India, the EU does not look like a sovereign bloc at all. Even London, which is formally no longer part of the EU, is allowed to participate in order to give "more weight". All this only highlights the weakness of the EU, which was once respected not only as an economic union. After all, the EU is not a union of states, not an international organization or a federation, but something in between. But now the EU has undoubtedly lost its reputation.
— There is a lot of talk about security guarantees for Ukraine now, and in this context, European guarantees are mentioned. In your opinion, can European countries provide any reliable guarantees?
"They can't. They have neither the personnel nor the weapons for this. In addition, they are required to purchase weapons from the United States and cannot act otherwise, because the defense industry in the European Union is concentrated in France, Italy, and a little in Spain, but in general there is no world-class military industry in the EU. And the main thing that the training of the Ukrainian military showed was that when Ukrainian soldiers were trained in Germany or the UK, the officers said that they were the ones who trained the Germans, not the Germans or the British who explained something to them. Because the Ukrainian army has combat experience, but all these armies lack it. These armies have been reduced over the past 30 years, and they were trained primarily for special operations, special forces, and regime change, as was the case, for example, in Libya. But these are not armies capable of waging a real war for many years. And therein lies the big problem.
When it comes to security guarantees... Ukraine will not join NATO, this is a fact, and the EU has been increasingly turning into a military alliance over the past three years. Will he try to create something like Article 5 [of the North Atlantic Treaty]? That is, he will declare: if one of the EU states is attacked, all the others will immediately come to the rescue? I do not believe that such an analogue of Article 5 will be able to appear at the EU level.
— We talked about the Ukrainian crisis. But unfortunately, there is another crisis in the world that has not ended yet, and that is the crisis in the Middle East. Some experts believe that the operation that Israel is planning in the Gaza Strip may become a "point of no return" for the Jewish state and that the fighting will continue indefinitely. How do you think this opinion is justified? Can the operation really take too long?
— This military operation began in October 2023, that is, two years ago. The Israeli army is designed for short operations. If we take, for example, the wars that Israel waged in Lebanon, whenever they dragged on, Israel was defeated. In 1982, they wanted to interfere in domestic politics, it was a very bloody war, the Israeli army occupied southern Lebanon for many years, but it was so expensive that eventually the troops withdrew in 2000. All the operations that Israel has conducted in Gaza since its withdrawal in the summer of 2005 — all these operations over the past 20 years have lasted only a few days or weeks.
The Israeli army is mainly based on reservists. In other words, all able-bodied men and women must first complete three years of military service, and then remain in the reserve until the age of 40 or 45, and participate in training camps every year. If a person is employed, the costs are borne by the company. If he is self-employed, the owner of a store or business, then this becomes a huge burden for him personally and for the economy. Israel has now mobilized 60,000 reservists. We also had contact with Israeli citizens who live in Europe. I don't know if numerous people with dual citizenship have been contacted, but there are hundreds of thousands of holders of both Russian and Israeli passports. Among them are those who left Russia for Israel in 2022, claiming that Israel is a peace—loving state and living there is better than in Russia. There were famous people who made their children, 13-14-year-old sons, citizens of Israel. This means that they will have to join the army soon. And this, I would say, is a huge problem for many people.
You mentioned a point of no return. In my opinion, Israel has overextended its forces. There is a term imperial overstretch in the international dictionary — "imperial overstrain". This is when there are more military operations than the country can handle. This is exactly the situation Israel finds itself in today. Because, let's not forget, he achieved nothing but destruction in Gaza. Hamas will not be destroyed. The hostages, who may still be alive and in terrible conditions, have already been forgotten. We see a large-scale operation that contradicts all norms of international law. The Israeli army is present in southern Lebanon, is present in southern Syria and is already fighting the Syrian army there. The Israeli army has been bombing Iran for twelve days in a row and seems ready to bomb it again. Israel might have been defeated there, too, if the United States hadn't said "Enough is enough" in June. All of Israel's operations cost money, lives, and increasingly undermine its reputation.
In Germany and Austria, Israel also has so-called unconditional allies: both Vienna and Berlin embrace [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] whenever possible. Netanyahu and fully support his government. Moreover, former Austrian politicians work for Netanyahu. But in other EU countries, the situation is completely different. France takes a tough stance and criticizes the Israeli government. There are already sanctions and criticism in Spain and Ireland, and the Israeli ambassador has been recalled in Ireland.
That is, Israel is now facing not only huge human losses, both for Palestinians and Israelis. Israel is facing the destruction of the very image that it has always wanted to create: "the most moral army," "the best democracy in the region." Reality no longer corresponds to all this. In October 2023, some people said that at the end of the war, either there would be no Palestine or there would be no Israel, and I can join this.
