Austria’s lessons for Ukraine about neutrality and Russia

Felix Austria — or Happy Austria, as the Habsburg Empire used to be called, because of its ability to avoid bloody wars — isn’t very happy these last few weeks. Its neutral status has both helped and hurt it, something supporters of neutrality for Ukraine would do well to remember.

The Times of London reports that Austria has become a hotbed of spies, and especially of Russian spies, with close connections to the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). Their influence extends to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, could soon collapse: “The OSCE’s work is based on consensus, but Russia is increasingly refusing play along. Meanwhile, fears are growing among some members about possible infiltration by Russian agents and diplomats.”

Vienna is also home to a large number of Russian businesses. As Trend, an Austrian news magazine reports, “Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna is a discreet center of many Russian businesses. Corporations such as Sberbank, Lukoil, Gazprom and Sibur manage their international business from here.”

The choice of Schwarzenbergplatz is not accidental. Known as Stalinplatz during the postwar Soviet occupation of Austria, the square features a towering memorial dedicated to the Red Army soldiers who died during the Soviet assault on the city in 1945. It remains untouched, even as monuments the world over came tumbling down in recent years.

Unsurprisingly, Russian oligarchs are especially enamored of Austria and, in particular, Vienna. Their pretensions, arrogance and lifestyle even became the subject of a 2019 Austrian comedy film, “Caviar,” about a Russian oligarch who wants to build a palace on a bridge in Vienna’s city center. Just as unsurprisingly, Austria continues to import some 55 percent of its gas from Russia, in clear violation of the spirit of the sanctions imposed on Putin’s regime.

Most Austrians view Russia with some suspicion — memories of the postwar occupation haven’t been expunged by time — the most prominent exception being the FPÖ, whose ex-foreign minister, Karin Kneissl, outraged the world by dancing the waltz with Vladimir Putin at her wedding in 2018 and then embarking on a vacation to, of all places, rural Russia a few months ago. What worries European and American democrats is that the party is likely to win next year’s parliamentary elections and perhaps be in the position to appoint the prime minister.

Meanwhile, Austria remains permanently neutral, as it decreed in 1955 as part of the deal whereby Soviet troops left the country and Austria regained its sovereignty. In retrospect, the current Russian presence in Austria is little different from the Soviet presence in post-1955 Cold War Austria. Then as now, the country was infiltrated with Russian spies. Then as now, large sectors of the Austrian economy were in the hands of pro-Russian interests, oligarchs today, the Communist Party of Austria then. Few Austrians aspired to join the Soviet Bloc, just as few would want their country to become a Russian vassal state today. Membership in the European Union helps to keep the Russian bear at bay, as does the presence in Vienna of a variety of U.N. institutions.

Somehow, Austria is likely to durchwursteln — a word that means something like “making it through like a sausage.” Surrounded by NATO members, Austria is perfectly safe from any possible Russian military predations.

Not so another country for which neutrality is often considered to be its best option: Ukraine. The Russians insist on Ukrainian neutrality, as do some Western policymakers and analysts, on the grounds that it would alleviate Russia’s security fears and guarantee Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The Austrian case suggests just the opposite, that a neutral Ukraine would quickly become decidedly infelix — or unhappy.

Russian spies would overrun the country, fifth columns would be organized, Ukrainian institutions would be infiltrated, and Russian capital would flow in. Ukraine would come to resemble not felix Austria, but the sorry country it was during the criminal presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, who was rapidly transforming Ukraine into a Russian vassal state before the Revolution of Dignity of 2013-14 intervened and he fled to Russia.

Worse, unlike Austria, which enjoys a cordon sanitaire to its east, Ukraine would be open to unmitigated Russian military pressure, regardless of whether Russia continues to occupy parts of four Ukrainian provinces and Crimea or is forced out. Simply put, to call for Ukrainian neutrality is to call for Ukraine’s disappearance — a prospect that Ukrainians may be forgiven for rejecting.

The real solution to Ukraine’s, and Eastern Europe’s, security problems is not Ukrainian (or Belarusian) neutrality. The real solution is Russian neutrality and, preferably, disarmament. Naturally, the Kremlin would never go for something this obvious and easy. That would require realizing that Russia’s domestic problems will never be solved as long as Russia aspires to and pursues empire.

And to abandon the goal of empire is, at least for Putin, to commit political suicide.

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”