VIENNA (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting Austria on Monday in his first trip to the European Union member country since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Austria is famously neutral — a stance it declared in 1955 after World War II — and Vienna has come under heavy criticism since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war for maintaining ties with Moscow.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 138 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, mainly at the eastern Donetsk region. Of those, 125 were either intercepted or jammed, while 10 reached their targets. Eight others caused damage as falling debris.
Zelenskyy was scheduled to meet with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and Chancellor Christian Stocker, and the two presidents were set to hold a news conference later Monday.
This is Stocker’s first high-profile visit from a foreign dignitary since he took office in March at the head of a previously untried three-party coalition after a record five-month wait for a new administration.
Zelenskyy’s wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska, and Doris Schmidauer, Van der Bellen’s spouse, will also host a discussion about the role of women in promoting peace and security during the trip.
Austria, which was annexed by Nazi Germany in the run-up to World War II, declared neutrality after the war under pressure from Western allies and the Soviet Union. It sought a role as a mediator between East and West, developing ties with Moscow that outlasted the Cold War.
The Austrian government has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also stressed the need to maintain diplomatic relations with Moscow. Vienna has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine but no weapons.
Former Chancellor Karl Nehammer was the first EU leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin face-to-face after the war started. Nehammer traveled to Moscow in April 2022 in a fruitless attempt to persuade the Russian leader to end the invasion.
