AFP, Vienna :
President Vladimir Putin on Monday downplayed suggestions Russia was seeking to disrupt the European Union’s cohesion, saying it was in his country’s interests for the bloc to remain “united and prosperous”.
“We have an interest in an EU that’s united and prosperous, since the EU is our most important commercial and economic partner,” Putin told Austria’s ORF television a day before an official visit to Vienna.
“The more problems at the heart of the EU, the more risks and problems there are for us. We need to build cooperation with the EU,” he said.
“We don’t have a goal of dividing anything or anyone in the EU.”
Putin, who was recently re-elected to a fourth Kremlin term, also played down reported links between his United Russia party and Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which is now part of the governing coalition in Vienna.
The FPOe-the junior partner to Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s People’s Party-supports Russia’s claim of sovereignty over Crimea and advocates the easing of economic sanctions levied against Moscow over its role in the Ukrainian crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is heading to Austria, one of the European Union’s more Russia-friendly members, on his first foreign trip since being sworn in for a fourth term.
Before meetings with Austrian leaders on Tuesday, Putin dismissed suggestions that Russia has any intention of dividing the 28-nation EU. In an interview with Austrian public broadcaster ORF, he said that Moscow wants the EU “to be united and flourish, because the EU is our most important trade and business partner.”
Putin’s sixth official visit to traditionally neutral Austria marks the 50th anniversary of the start of Soviet gas deliveries to Austria. Unlike many other EU countries, Austria didn’t expel Russian diplomats over the poisoning in Britain earlier this year of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.
