Russian state oil giant Rosneft has confirmed that Austria's former foreign minister, Karin Kneissl, whose wedding in 2018 was attended by President Vladimir Putin, has left the company's board of directors.
Rosneft said in a statement on May 23 that Kneissel had stepped down three days earlier, and that she would not seek to renew her position on the board for a second term.
Her resignation comes after former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder left the board under pressure from lawmakers in the Bundestag, who had announced he would lose his taxpayer-funded office and staff amid the controversy over his close ties to Russia.
Kneissl was confirmed to the Rosneft board as an independent director in June 2021. The move immediately raised eyebrows as it came at a time when the European Union was at odds with Moscow over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and other issues.
Kneissl had already made headlines with regard to Russia when pictures of her dancing with Putin at her 2018 wedding were splashed across newspapers around the world.
Kneissl, a Middle East expert without political affiliation, was appointed to her cabinet post by the far-right Freedom Party, which had a cooperation agreement with Putin's United Russia party.
She left the government in 2019.
According to Kneissl's personal website, the 57-year-old was recently interviewed by the Kremlin-backed RT media outlet, for which she has written several opinion pieces.
Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil producer, is headed by Igor Sechin, a close ally of Putin.