The Strudel of Influence Layer 3: The Impact on Austrian Politics
Investigators/Authors: Ben B., JH, Nazarii Cherviak
Edited by: Emma Urbanova
This investigation was realised with the support of Journalism Fund Europe.
Beyond the Russian state institutions present in the country, and operating in a more indirect manner than the openly pro-Russian individuals, lies the bottom layer of the Russian network of influence in Austria. These are the local grassroots Austrian institutions - while not explicitly related to Russia, their own local goals and agendas in many cases conveniently align with those of the Russian state. This renders them willing and organic partners of Russia, although they often go to great lengths to obscure the extent of these ties. However, it is an open secret that high-level Austrian state organs are compromised.
Furthermore, Austria's energy policies remain intricately intertwined with the Russian gas trade. The partially state-owned energy giant OMV holds a contract with Russia, stipulating the supply of six billion cubic meters of gas annually at a preferential rate. A contractual clause obliges Austria to make payments to Gazprom regardless of whether the gas is actually utilized, should the supplier meet its delivery obligations.
In the presence of Vladimir Putin, the extension of this pivotal contract until 2040 was signed off by former ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who faced ousting through a vote of no confidence in 2019. As the war in Ukraine rages on, Austria continues funnelling funds into the coffers of the aggressor state. In the capital Vienna, Russian oligarchs have found a comfortable haven, with corporate entities like Lukoil International and Gazprom bustling around Schwarzenbergplatz 5. The political and economic ties binding Moscow and Vienna run deep, which brought Austria second place in The Economist’s ranking of “Vladimir Putin's useful idiots”.
Jan Marsalek’s passport photo. Source: Bundeskriminalamt/BKA/DPA
The Financial Times, quoting a European intelligence official, described Austria as a “veritable aircraft carrier” of Russian espionage, adding that the country’s defence ministry is “practically a department of the GRU”. The Wirecard Scandal illustrates this: Jan Marsalek, the son of a suspected Soviet spy, came to international attention as the COO of payment processing firm Wirecard. German prosecutors accused the firm of committing financial fraud, after which Marsalek disappeared.
Currently, Austrian and German intelligence speculate that he is living in Russia, under the protection of the GRU. Marsalek is also a central figure in the latest spying scandal from Austria, where former Austrian intelligence official Egisto Ott awaits trial, having been charged with spying for Russia. Austrian prosecutors allege that Ott passed sensitive data, including cell phone data of high-ranking Austria officials, to Marsalek.
FPÖ
However, a particularly compromised institution is the national-conservative Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), as exemplified by the 2019 Ibiza Affair, which caused the collapse of the then-ruling coalition of the ÖVP and FPÖ. A secretly recorded video was published, showing two high-ranking politicians of the right-wing FPÖ - former vice chancellor of Austria Heinz-Christian Strache, then chairman of the FPÖ, and his deputy Johann Gudenus - meeting with a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece. In the video, the politicians are seen discussing the possibility of buying positive Russian media coverage in exchange for government contracts.
In another notable incident in 2018, Karin Kneissl, the former Foreign Minister appointed by FPÖ, made a curtsy to Putin during her wedding ceremony. Known for her pro-Russian positions during her time in office, she became a member of the supervisory board at Russian state-owned petroleum company Rosneft after leaving the ministry in 2019. Following this, Kneissl's relocation to Russia to assume a prominent position as the head of the St. Petersburg state-related think tank G.O.R.K.I sparked concerns of potential espionage, particularly given her tenure as the country's foreign minister.
In the current espionage affair surrounding Ott, FPÖ federal party leader Kickl was requested to give an account. Kickl, who was Minister of the Interior from 2017 to 2019, appeared as a witness in a committee of enquiry dealing with an alleged abuse of power by the social democratic SPÖ and right-wing party FPÖ. Asked about his connections to Moscow, Kickl claimed to have 'no personal connections to Russia at all' in front of the committee.
The credibility of Herbert Kickl's testimony before the investigating committee seems questionable, considering reports in the left-liberal weekly newspaper Falter from March 2023. The paper published an anonymous dossier that indicated Kickl's contacts with the Russian Secret Service during his time in office as Interior Minister.
The allegations by insiders at the embassy and secret services of the Russian Federation in Austria state that the Russian ambassador in Vienna wanted to introduce Kickl to three individuals: Vitaly Muragin, an official representative of the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB in Austria, and two other diplomats, one supposedly a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer and the other a former employee of the GRU.
Despite Kickl's spokesperson refuting the alleged meeting, in October 2018, Kickl sought to negotiate an "uncomplicated exchange of data and police deployment in each other's countries" with his Russian counterpart in Moscow. This negotiation also included discussions on "forming investigative teams for cross-border cases" and, notably, "ensuring secure communication outside traditional diplomatic channels" as "part of Austria's security strategy". All of this was supposed to be “part of Austria's security strategy“, according to the spokesperson.
Although the FPÖ's overtly pro-Russian stance receded in the public sphere after the party's ousting from the coalition government over the Ibiza affair,it has recently resurfaced in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the softer tone may be a political strategy to rehabilitate the party in the aftermath of the Ibiza affair (successfully, as the party is once again leading the polls for the upcoming Austrian elections), an analysis of over 130 press releases issued by the FPÖ's parliamentary club during the first year of the Ukraine war revealed that almost 60 per cent of all press releases contained criticism of the EU sanctions imposed on Russia. Despite the condemnation of Russia's actions, almost as much criticism was directed at Ukraine and its leadership.
On its parliamentary website, the party describes the war as an “economic war” fuelled by the USA and calls for an immediate end to Austria's “neutrality-destroying and economically ruinous” sanctions policy against Russia. Kickl himself repeatedly called for a “ceasefire” at the cost of Ukraine losing its occupied territory, and an end to Austrian support. He also announced that he would veto EU-Russia sanctions if he became chancellor. Finally, the party cites support for Ukraine and its government as an example of an alleged breach of the duty of neutrality.
“A libetarian Federal Chancellor would NEVER have agreed to the Russia sanctions!” Herbert Kickl on his facebook page. 16 January 2023
This hardly comes as a surprise to those familiar with the party’s political ideology. The FPÖ often uses Austria's “commitment to neutrality” as an argument in its right-wing extremist rhetoric. While regaining its sovereignty in 1955, Austria's independence emerged with the condition of permanent neutrality. This stipulation barred the nation from affiliating with any military alliances, such as NATO. The principle of neutrality has not only become deeply ingrained in Austrian society, but also heavily influenced its political landscape and diplomatic strategies, including an approach to countering foreign espionage only when directly targeted at its own nation.
While Austria remains outside NATO, the country became a member of the European Union in 1995, despite the euro-sceptic and nationalist Freedom Party of Austria voting against this in the 1994 referendum on membership. In light of the war in Ukraine, the FPÖ has constantly railed against EU decisions alongside countries like Hungary, opposing EU sanctions against Russia, Ukraine's EU accession status, EU financial aid for the reconstruction of the war-torn country, and any form of military assistance.
FPÖ, Fraternities, and the Identitarian Movement
The rhetoric and political behaviour that plays into the hands of Russia's interests has increased in the FPÖ again under Kickl in the course of the Ukraine war and election campaign. However, the Ukrainian expert on right-wing extremism Anton Shekhovtsov explains in an interview with Die Zeit that an intentionally pro-Russian core in the FPÖ existed especially under Heinz-Christian Strache.
As party leader, Strache had ensured the party follows a pro-Russian path since 2005. At the lavish Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna, Strache met the ultranationalist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin at an event financed by the oligarch Konstantin Malofeev back in 2014. In 2016, the FPÖ signed a “friendship treaty” with Putin's United Russia party following the annexation of Crimea. For some time now, the new party leader Herbert Kickl has been claiming that the FPÖ cancelled the alliance and that it never actually came into force. However, the FPÖ has not yet disclosed the agreement or any cancellation.
Strache's former deputy Johann Gudenus is a main figure at the centre of the party's reorientation towards Russia. Gudenus's connection to Russia started early - he learnt Russian at secondary school and later attended courses at Moscow's Lomonosov University. In the video leading to the Ibiza Affair, he ensures the communication between the fake oligarch’s niece and his party colleague, Strache, as an interpreter. Moreover, it was him who had introduced the niece to Strache in the first place.
In 2014, Gudenus was one of the international election observers in annexed Crimea, certifying Russia a lawful election process. In 2016, during his time as an FPÖ deputy mayor, the then-director of the Suvorov Institute, Patrick Poppel, personally presented him with a Russian icon at Vienna City Hall.
Poppel and Gudenus. Source: Suvorov Institute Facebook page
The son of FPÖ veteran and Holocaust denier John Gudenus, Johann Gudenus met Strache at the age of 15. Strache introduced him to his “Vandalia” fraternity and became his “Leibvater”, his fraternity - and political - mentor. Austrian fraternities are known to form the academic backbone of the FPÖ. Every year, the party organises the so-called Akademikerball, where fraternities meet to dance and, above all, to form alliances, including with like-minded European parties such as Germany's AfD. The fraternities' closeness to the FPÖ has grown steadily in recent years. This also includes an increasing ideological proximity to right-wing extremist groups that have emerged within the fraternities.
The Identitarian movement is probably the most notorious of these groups. In 2012, Alexander Markovics founded the political movement, trying to appeal to young people with right-wing extremism in a modern package. Central to its ideology is the conspiracy theory of the “Great Replacement”, asserting the systematic replacement of white Europeans by non-white migrants conducted by elites. The Austrian pendant to France's Génération identitaire, the movement also promotes an anti-LGBTQI* ideology, aligning closely with Russia's political agenda in many aspects.
Alexander Markovics listed as head of the Identitarian Movement on their website. 04 November 2014
Markovics, too, has been a member of an Austrian fraternity, and gained his first political experience as a district-level candidate for the FPÖ. For the Identitarian website, Alexander Markovics has interviewed the Russian fascist publicist Alexander Dugin. Since 2017, Markovics has been the press spokesman for the Suvorov Institute, which describes itself as "an institution in Austria that advocates honest dialogue with Russia".
The institute, having been founded following the annexation of Crimea in September 2014, is mostly known for providing a platform for right-wing, pro-Russian narratives and its active political campaign to meet Russia's interests. Markovics has held the position of Secretary-General since 2019. On its website, the Suvorov Institute named Christian Machek, a person with close ties to the FPÖ, as its educational director as reported by Der Standard Machek later claimed to have been named on the institute's website without his knowledge.
Patrick Poppel handing over the chairmanship to Alexander Markovics. Source: Suvorov Institute website
Jurij Kofner listed as a member on http://greater-europe.org/members. 25 July 2018
Markovics and the Suvorov Institute maintained links with Yuri Kofner, the director of the Munich-based NGO Centre for Continental Cooperation. Kofner, a graduate of the famous Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), a university known for training both Russian diplomats and intelligence officers, has been photographed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, among others. Like the Identitarian movement, the NGO is ideologically committed to the conspiracy theory of the “Great Replacement”.
The institute's website is no longer active, but used to list MGIMO among its partners, along with the Council on International Affairs in Russia. According to Der Standard, Maximilian Dvorak-Stocker, a member of the Identitarians and author at Ares-Verlag, which is run by his father and involved in “unzensuriert.at”, sits on the board of Kofner's centre. “Unzensuriert.at” was founded on the initiative of FPÖ politician Martin Graf and is considered a media portal close to the FPÖ.
Kofner and Lavrov.
The many points of contact between the Identitarian movement, pro-Russian institutions, and the Freedom Party are a cause for concern. When it became known in March 2019 that the Christchurch attacker had sent money to the IBÖ Austria, the media uncovered numerous links between the FPÖ and the right-wing extremist movement. Strache's party then decided to officially distance itself from the Identitarians in a move to prevent further political damage to themselves. The group around Markovics and Sellner subsequently lost their Linz centre in the FPÖ's fraternity house Villa Hagen and their Graz centre, which was provided by FPÖ city councillor Heinrich Sickl.
However, experts on right-wing extremism have observed an increasing fusion between the Identitarian movement and the FPÖ under the new party leadership of Kickl. Both the FPÖ in Austria and the AfD in neighbouring Germany employ people from the Identitarian movement. The party's new leadership does not seem to feel the need to distance itself from the movement. Kickl summarily trivialised the far-right activist group as a “right-wing NGO” and greeted them as like-minded” in his speech at the right-wing “Defenders of Europe Congress” in 2016.
An ideological convergence and a personnel fusion of the party with extreme right-wing groups such as the IBÖ will inevitably bring the party closer to the pro-Russian environment of these groups. Considering this, the party’s rhetoric, and past ties with Russia, a 2024 elections victory for the poll-leading FPÖ would make European solidarity for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia much more difficult, and probably impossible in Austria.
Ben B.
Throughout his academic career and experience, Ben has found his passion in OSINT, currently aiding in the research and investigation into Russian disinformation at CIDER. In addition to this, he specialises in war studies and international relations.
JH
J. is an investigative journalist with experience in verification and geolocation. She has a background in Eastern European studies with a specialisation in political and economic sociology and focuses on right-wing movements and politics around Europe.
Nazarii Cherviak
Nazarii is an OSINT and SOCMINT specialist from the pro-Ukrainian non-governmental organisation in Austria Unlimited Democracy.
