Putin to attend Austrian foreign minister’s wedding

The Kremlin says that President Vladimir Putin will attend the Austrian foreign minister’s wedding this week.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Putin, who is set to visit Berlin on Saturday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, will make a stopover in Austria to attend Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl’s wedding.

Attending Kneissl’s wedding marks a rare case when Putin attends a private event at the invitation of a foreign official.

Russian media report that Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Kneissl invited Putin to her wedding when the Russian leader visited Vienna in June.

Kneissl, a representative of the right-wing Freedom Party, has spoken in favor of strengthening Russian-Austrian ties.