It's about much more than Ukraine

Dmitrij Ljubinskij (Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Austria) | The Russian ambassador in Vienna responds to the guest commentary by his Ukrainian colleague.

■ On September 18, a guest commentary by the Ukrainian ambassador in Vienna was published here in the "Presse". Given the Austrian reader's obvious fatigue with the omnipresent, almost daily repetition of Ukrainian propaganda, I would have liked to have spared myself a polemic at this point. However, I will allow only a few comments on the principle here.

■ The Kyiv ambassador's wild assertion that the Ukraine crisis is one of the most important election campaign issues in Austria can only be seen as an attempt at brazen interference in domestic affairs. Such a thesis sounds particularly obscene in light of the immense damage recently caused by the devastating natural disaster in this country and the associated concerns of ordinary Austrians.

■ As far as Ukraine is concerned, it has become nothing more than a pawn in the collective West's large-scale confrontation with Russia in recent years. The so-called Selensky formula can play no role in a sustainable settlement of the crisis, which incidentally began long before 2022. It is totally out of touch with reality, even its authors understand that.

■ Today's world politics is about much more than Ukraine. The world majority is fighting for a new, fairer and progressive multipolar world order that will be based exclusively on international law and free from US-dictated "rules". This will also be discussed at the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan (October 22-24) in a broad format and under the chairmanship of Russia.

■ As far as Austria is concerned, it risks getting stuck in a group of countries that are throwing everything imaginable into the bottomless pit of support for Ukraine ("Whatever the cost ..."). Not only to the detriment of their people but also to further aggravate the international strategic situation. The total ceiling of the so-called European Peace Facility, in which Vienna is also making a substantial financial contribution, now amounts to more than twelve billion euros. Wouldn't these funds have deserved a more sensible use than being senselessly squandered on the war economy in the interests of a laughing third party outside Europe?

The facts speak for themselves: Unlike representatives of Ukraine and their Western puppeteers, we never seek to impose our opinion on others as the only correct one. However, the decision-makers in Austria are not only reluctant to hear it, they fear it. The facts speak for themselves. For example, the recent de facto expulsion of two young Russian journalists from Austria for no reason and without explanation, a total ban on Russian media in the country, or the constant refusal to publish our articles in domestic newspapers. The Austrian government and media are denying their citizens access to a different perspective on world events. The question of why such a thing happens and is even conceivable in a country that supposedly champions freedom of expression and media freedom remains up in the air. You conclude yourself. (DeepL + Grammarly)