Austria’s Chancellor: In Russia’s war against Ukraine, shifting criminal’s blame onto victim unacceptable

Federal Chancellor of Austria, Karl Nehammer, says it is unacceptable to allow replacing the concepts of criminal and victim in the war of aggression Russia is waging against Ukraine.

The head of the Austrian government said this during a solemn event in Vienna on the occasion of liberation from National Socialism and the end of the Second World War, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is causing so much suffering, it has brought the injustice of war back to European soil. Although it was after the Second World War that we managed to wrest from each other this commitment to never fight again, effectively putting an end to the killing of millions that had been going on for centuries in Europe," he said.

The Austrian chancellor stressed that everyone must be vigilant when someone is trying to pass off a criminal as victim in Russia's attack on Ukraine.

"We must be vigilant when we think and talk about defensive democracy and defense, so as not to allow the criminal to become a victim as radicals sometimes try to do as regards Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," Nehammer emphasized.

According to the chancellor, it is also necessary to be vigilant in the matter of a terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel. In this context, he noted that the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could end with the capitulation of Hamas – and this should be a "clear demand from the West."

As Ukrinform reported, the right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), known for its pro-Russian position, used an anti-Ukrainian poster in its campaign for the European Parliament elections.

In this regard, the Embassy of Ukraine sent an official note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria, condemning the strategy of the FPÖ to manipulatively and distortedly portray the reasons and essence of Russia's full-scale aggression, "which, among other things, is an insult to the Ukrainian people that creates grounds for justifying Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine".

Photo: President’s Office