A former Austrian foreign minister who had Russian President Vladimir Putin as a guest at her wedding has been appointed the Kremlin leader’s goodwill ambassador to raise awareness for tiger conservation.
Karin Kneissl, who lives in Russia, will focus specifically on protecting the Amur tiger, a species once common in Siberia but whose numbers have now declined sharply, Russian state news agencies reported Tuesday.
Sergei Aramilev, the general director of the Amur Tiger Center in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, said Kneissl would help the center in international affairs, the Ria Novosti news agency reported.
Kneissl was Austria’s foreign minister from 2017 to 2019. She served in the government that also included the far-right Freedom Party. Although she was nominated for the position by the party, she was a political independent.
Kneissl danced with Putin at her wedding in Austria in 2018. The move drew international criticism.
In June, the 59-year-old said at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg that she was happy about the new opportunity to live and work in Russia.
The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is the largest feline predator in the world. Kneissl said at an economic forum in Vladivostok in September 2022 that she would like to take on a role in protecting big cats in Russia.
There are also plans to open a safari park on Russky Island near Vladivostok in 2026, which will house Amur tigers that cannot be released into the wild. The tiger is a protected species, but is still often the victim of poaching.
Authorities recently reported a growing population thanks to state-funded conservation programs. Russia has doubled its number of Amur tigers in the past 10 years to nearly 750, it said.