Wedding Crasher: Putin Dances with Austrian Foreign Minister at Her Wedding

VIENNA (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin danced arm-in-arm with Austria’s Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl at her wedding on Saturday, after receiving an invitation that opposition critics said undermined the West’s stance against Moscow.

Do you think he wants to do that? I don't think he wants to do that.

Putin arrived in a car carrying a bouquet of flowers and accompanied, local media said, by a troupe of Cossack singers booked to serenade the newlyweds...

Photographs showed Kneissl, 53, smiling...and talking to Putin as they danced in a vineyard...Putin,... according to the Kremlin - was pictured listening to her intently.

...

Maybe she was asking him to ride her like a bear you people are so suspicious!

“It was a nice trip. It was a private visit.”

See? It was just a private visit!

[Kneissl] was appointed to her job by the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) which has a cooperation agreement with Putin’s United Russia party.

So? It's nice to cooperate! Sheesh.

FPO leader and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has expressed support for Russia and called for sanctions against Moscow to be lifted.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his conservatives, who control Austria’s EU policy, have said Austria will toe the EU line - though they have also pointed to Austria’s history of neutrality and its relatively warm relations with Russia. Kurz also attended the wedding.

Strache...praised Kneissl on Saturday as a “bridge builder” 

BUILD THE BRIDGE!

Putin travelled to Germany later on Saturday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks about Syria, Ukraine, and energy matters.

Austria did not follow other members of the EU earlier this year in expelling Russian diplomats after Britain accused the Kremlin of involvement in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in England - a charge Moscow denies.