New political chats are causing excitement. In news published yesterday, which is available to profil, the then Vice Chancellor and FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache wants to initiate a meeting between Austrian and Russian officials. This is no surprise, after all, the Freedom Party had contractually agreed with the Kremlin to “actively” develop contacts at the regional level.
“Russia is requesting an exchange of ideas with young officials in Austria… something must be possible here through the administrative academy. Please call him and fix something! LG”
Strache typed this message to Roland Weinert on April 8, 2019. “We will meet,” his then head of cabinet in the Sports Ministry assured him.
In addition to networking events with Russians, they chatted about personnel decisions and how they felt after the Ibiza video. The chats were sent to the parliamentary groups in preparation for the U-Committee “Red-Blue Abuse of Power”. As part of the Ibiza investigation, the cell phone of ex-Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache (FPÖ) was confiscated. So far the public only knows the messages between him and the former ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
For Andreas Hanger, ÖVP parliamentary group leader, the chats reveal “a highly corrupt system”. A high-profile FPÖ circle would discuss “how close people should be provided with jobs, who needs to be helped with financial problems or who will have their advertising money withdrawn because the reporting is not pleasing.”
The then FPÖ government members Norbert Hofer, Mario Kunasek, Beate Hartinger-Klein and Herbert Kickl chatted in the chat group founded by Strache. However, the latter seems to have only been reading along. For example, this message from Strache:
“Please continue to switch to Fellner. We’ve sorted it out! He is coming towards us! LG”
This could mean the Fellner family who published the Austrian newspaper. Placing means something like: “booking advertisements”.
As soon as the FPÖ is in government responsibility, “no stone will be left unturned – people will then occupy, intervene and influence” as much as they can. “Herbert Kickl is at the tip of a blue scandal iceberg and is not ashamed to preach water while he and his disciples drink the wine.” Criticism also comes from other parties. After all, “FPÖ stands for: Friends of Putin Austria,” said Pink Secretary General Douglas Hoyos at a press conference on Thursday. The FPÖ complains about the ÖVP’s dirty bucket campaigns in connection with Russia allegations.
The chats in question took place in 2019. After the annexation of Crimea, before Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. What is the status of the “exchange of ideas” between Austrian and Russian officials?
Russian-liberal friendship
The Blues publicly want to have terminated the friendship with Russia that was sealed in 2016. A friendship that was even recorded in writing in 2016 – the FPÖ says it has now dissolved the signed “friendship agreement” with Vladimir Putin’s party “United Russia”. Relations between Austria and Russia were considered extremely good at the time, despite the annexation of Crimea, as several high-level bilateral meetings show.
The FPÖ did not want to comment on the Strache chats that had become public to the APA; in any case, there would only have been “the usual relations within the framework of the government” between it and Russia, the APA quotes the Freedom Party as saying.
But how much has the years of “exchange of ideas” shaped the party?
Arguments along Putin lines
The FPÖ seems to have remained true to its Russia-friendly line.
She has always adopted the Russian argument that sanctions would harm Austrians more than Putin. As Chancellor, Kickl said, he would “immediately block” this. He calls for a “ceasefire” rather than a complete withdrawal of Russian troops. Last April, when Austria – one of the last European countries – invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi to a video speech in parliament about the war crimes in his country, the Freedom Party left the hall as one.
And when it comes to the late opposition leader in Russia Alexei Navalny, the FPÖ leader admits that there are human rights problems there, but at a press conference this week did not demand any consequences: “If you talk to Navalny, then I will tell you: Assange. You will know that this man, among other things, published papers in his WikiLeaks publications that document one thing: namely the systematic elimination of political opponents of the USA by CIA hit squads. Well, what’s there then? Do you now want to break off relations with the Americans too?” Kickl avoids clearly condemning Putin’s brutal treatment of opposition members, instead pointing the finger at the USA.
What’s more: Even after Navalny’s death, those around the liberal family continued to rail against the opposition figure. Even without a friendship agreement, the FPÖ seems to know where its loyalties lie.