To Russia for the money: Austria’s Putin-friendly former foreign minister lives on million-ruble fees from propaganda channel RT

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In a recent broadcast of “The Vovan and Lexus Show,” Karin Kneissl claimed the West is seeking to “destroy Russia from within.” If one element of that plan is the siphoning of Russia’s state budget by propagandists, then Kneissl herself is doing a good job.

A millionaire from a village

In 2022, after being pushed out of her political post, Austria’s former foreign minister said that she lived on just €1,200 a month. After moving to Russia, she tried to build an image of a modest exile, settling in the village of Petrushovo in the Ryazan Region and going to a local bathhouse — the “banya” — with her fellow villagers.

But Russia did not leave Karin Kneissl in need. The Insider has found that her average monthly income is 1,697,000 rubles (about €18,500) — more than Kneissl earned as a minister in Austria’s government, when her salary was €17,800.

Her income now comes from seven sources:

• St. Petersburg State University, where she heads the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia Key Issues Center, known as G.O.R.K.I. (More on this is in Novaya Gazeta Europe.)
  
• ANO TV-Novosti, the legal entity for Russia Today.
  
• ANO International Competence Center in Mining Engineering Education, a UNESCO-affiliated organization “created to promote the development of competencies and the dissemination of knowledge and technologies in the mineral resources sector, energy, and mining engineering education in the interests of global sustainable development.”
  
• Siberian Federal University and Ryazan State University, where Kneissl is listed as a lecturer.
  
• Business News Media JSC (АО «Бизнес Ньюс Медиа»), which owns the Vedomosti brand.
  
• Teleprofil LLC (ООО «Телепрофиль»), a studio that produces documentary films and political programs. Novaya Gazeta Europe recently drew attention to Kneissl’s payments from the company.
  

The former Austrian foreign minister also published a book in 2024 titled “Requiem for Europe.” In it, she “regretfully acknowledges the final decline of the Europe in which she was born and lived for many years.” Kneissl received only a small amount from the publisher, Political Encyclopedia — just over 73,000 rubles ($920).

All of Kneissl’s employers are either directly controlled by or connected to the Russian government.

In the circle of Putin’s friends

St. Petersburg State University, seen as Kneissl’s main employer in Russia, is headed by rector Nikolai Kropachev, a member of the ruling United Russia party and a figure who has served as one of President Vladimir Putin’s official campaign representatives. The Insider has reported that the university’s students have been expelled and lecturers dismissed over their antiwar and opposition views, and that Kropachev has been accused of beating his wife.

Kneissl not only receives a salary from the university, but also uses its drivers. The Insider has confirmed that the insurance policy for her Toyota Land Cruiser Prado includes the names of two St. Petersburg State University employees: Yevgeny Kurgansky and Konstantin Bondar (the latter at least, is a driver by profession).

The “International Competence Center in Mining Engineering Education,” another of Kneissl’s employers, is based at St. Petersburg’s Mining University. Its rector is Vladimir Litvinenko — another academic linked to Putin, and also a billionaire.

Litvinenko is a co-owner of leading fertilizer producer PhosAgro — a position he gained thanks to his role as the actual author of Vladimir Putin’s falsified academic dissertation. Putin defended his candidate’s thesis under Litvinenko’s supervision, and later Litvinenko headed Putin’s election campaign headquarters in St. Petersburg.

Kneissl also gives lectures at Ryazan State and Siberian Federal on subjects ranging from geopolitics to the oil industry. The rector of the former, Dmitry Bokov, is a member of the United Russia party, while the rector of the latter, Maksim Rumyantsev, was one of the authors of a letter supporting the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On Simonyan’s payroll

“That notable former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, the one Putin danced with at her wedding, will now write guest columns for us,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan boasted back in 2020. Since then, the Russian state-funded television channel has paid Kneissl generously for her anti-Western attacks.

In July of last year, Kneissl compared the rhetoric of Germany’s current defense minister to that of Joseph Goebbels. The next day, a total of 1,174,374 rubles ($14,855) were deposited into her account.

“Neither the tightest sanctions regime nor a NATO-sponsored alliance of combatants managed to defeat Russia and destroy its economy,” Kneissl wrote in May, shortly before receiving 611,000 rubles ($7,729).

In March, Kneissl was especially active publicly, giving interviews on TV, laughing at Volodymyr Zelensky, and claiming that Russia had supposedly already won the “special military operation.” That month, RT paid her 1.3 million rubles ($16,444).

The former diplomat also writes columns for the Kremlin-aligned newspaper Vedomosti — a publication that lost its independence several years ago. Its owner is now Oleg Leonov, a former top manager at the tabloid channel REN TV, an asset of Putin’s friend Yuri Kovalchuk.

Teleprofil LLC, which also made payments to Kneissl, produces propaganda films for Russia’s top propaganda outlet Channel One. In addition to airing the “Vovan and Lexus Show,” the network also recently filmed a documentary about “military priests” in the Donbas.

Flights and ties to the security services

Karin Kneissl first visited Russia no later than 2014, according to airline ticket booking data obtained by The Insider. At that time, no one could have predicted the rapid rise of her political career. Back then, Kneissl lived in the small town of Seibersdorf and only occasionally gave lectures and published articles. She said she flew as a tourist, but for some reason she then flew again in 2016 and in early 2017.

Everything changed that year when Kneissl became foreign minister. Her appointment came with the support of Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the far-right Freedom Party, who was then serving as Austria’s vice chancellor. Strache later resigned amid suspicions of collusion with the “niece of a Russian oligarch” and was later convicted of corruption.

At the time of her appointment, Kneissl had no management experience, and her political achievements were limited to membership on the council of her town.

The Insider has found that Kneissl’s airline tickets are now booked with the help of a woman named Tatyana Kuznetsova. She is employed at a company called 31 GPISS JSC (АО «31 ГПИСС»), which designs special facilities for the Defense Ministry.

When booking, Kuznetsova uses the corporate email of the “Foundation for the Development and Support of Bodies and Organizations of the Justice System,” created in 2022. Its first director was 77-year-old Vladimir Suslov, a former head of the Department for Economic Oversight in the Control Directorate of Russia’s Presidential Administration.

According to leaked data, Suslov is employed at the Amur Tiger Center, an organization created at Vladimir Putin’s initiative and managed by the Russian Geographical Society, which for many years was headed by former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Kneissl works with the center as an “ambassador for the preservation of the Amur tiger” and as an external adviser to its director. The center’s supervisory board includes Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko, among others.

Money in the bank

When Putin attended Kneissl’s wedding in 2018, his list of gifts included not only a samovar, an antique oil press, and a performance by the Cossack choir he brought along for the occasion, but also sapphire earrings worth €50,000.

Kneissl very much wanted to keep the earrings, but she was forced to hand the gift over to Austria as state property. At the time, she did not have the money to buy back Putin’s offering.

Now, however, Kneissl would not have that problem. According to leaked information reviewed by The Insider, more than 25 million rubles (around €280,000) had accumulated in her bank accounts at VBRR and Intesa by 2025 — enough for several pairs of earrings from Putin.