Channeling its Nazi past, Austria aims to lick Putin’s boots for cash

Austria is once again standing apart from Europe — this time not out of neutrality, but out of greed. In a move that has stunned diplomats across the European Union, Vienna has threatened to block the EU’s latest sanctions package against Russia unless it receives financial compensation for one of its own banks — Raiffeisen Bank International — through the unfreezing of Russian-linked assets.

According to Reuters, Austria told EU member states during a closed-door meeting in Brussels that it would not support the bloc’s 19th sanctions package against Moscow unless the EU allowed the release of €2 billion in frozen Russian assets. The demand stems from a January ruling by a Russian court ordering Raiffeisen Bank to pay that same amount in damages — a verdict widely viewed in Brussels as political retribution against the West.

Yet instead of rejecting the logic of the Kremlin’s sham courts, Vienna now seeks to profit from them. Austria wants the EU to unfreeze shares in the construction giant Strabag, previously part-owned by sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska, so Raiffeisen can seize them to cover its losses.

Diplomats from multiple EU nations, however, warn that doing so would legitimise Russian court decisions and create a dangerous precedent — one that would embolden Moscow and its oligarch proxies to file similar retaliatory lawsuits against Western entities. “It would mean the EU recognizing the authority of Russian kangaroo courts,” one diplomat told Reuters.

Austria’s moral isolation

Austria’s stance has long frustrated its European partners. While most of Europe tightened sanctions and cut energy ties after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vienna clung to its privileged position as a hub for Russian business and banking. Raiffeisen remains one of the last major Western banks still operating in Russia, continuing to earn billions from transactions in the Russian market while EU taxpayers fund Ukraine’s resistance against the same regime.
The move echoes Austria’s historical tendency to straddle both sides of moral conflicts. From the Anschluss to the present, Austria has perfected the art of posing as victim while profiting from aggressors. Now, under the banner of “protecting its financial interests,” it seeks to convert frozen assets — meant for postwar reconstruction of Ukraine — into compensation for its own losses caused by doing business in Putin’s Russia.

Following Deripaska’s shadow

The irony of Austria siding with Moscow over Oleg Deripaska — a sanctioned oligarch deeply entangled in the Kremlin’s intelligence and industrial networks — is not lost on EU observers. The Strabag case, at the heart of Vienna’s demand, stems directly from Deripaska’s legal machinations inside Russia.

If Austria succeeds in its campaign, the EU would effectively transfer assets linked to a Putin ally to an Austrian bank still doing business in Russia — a financial shell game that would undermine the very purpose of sanctions.

Europe pushes back

Other EU capitals, led by the Baltic states and Poland, have made clear that Austria’s proposal is unacceptable. They argue that any unfreezing of Russian assets before Moscow pays reparations to Ukraine would reward aggression and sabotage European unity at a critical moment in the war.

Yet Raiffeisen’s stock rose on the news of Austria’s defiance — a fitting reflection of Vienna’s priorities. While Ukrainians continue to repair bombed power plants and shattered railways, Austria’s diplomats are busy bargaining over the proceeds of Russian oligarchs.

Once again, Europe finds itself confronting a familiar question: how far will Austria go to protect its business with Moscow? In 1938, it opened its doors to fascism. In 2025, it opens its mouth for cash.