*VIENNA: Russian President Vladimir Putin danced arm in arm with Austria’sForeign Minister Karin Kneissl at her wedding on Saturday, after receivingan invitation that opposition critics said undermined the West’s stanceagainst Moscow.*
Putin arrived in a car carrying a bouquet of flowers and accompanied, localmedia said, by a troupe of Cossack singers booked to serenade the newlyweds— on a stopover on his way to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel outsideBerlin.
Photographs showed Kneissl, 53, smiling in a long white and cream “dirndl”dress and talking to Putin as they danced in a vineyard in southern Styriaprovince, the venue of her wedding to entrepreneur Wolfgang Meilinger.
The invitation surprised many in Vienna and Moscow, particularly at a timewhen the European Union is at odds with Russia over its annexation ofUkraine’s Crimea region and other issues.
There have been no reports that Kneissl — a polyglot Middle East expertwithout political affiliation — has a particularly close friendship withPutin. But she was appointed to her job by the far-right Freedom Party(FPO) which has links with Putin’s party.