Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, famous for dancing with Russian President Vladimir Putin at her wedding, is to move to St Petersburg.

Kneissl said to Kremlin-aligned news agency TASS on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum that she will move to St Petersburg to work at the G.O.R.K.I. (the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia's Key Issues) centre, which she runs.

"I co-founded the G.O.R.K.I. centre, and I run it. As there is lots of work there and it requires plenty of attention, I cannot do it casually, so I have decided to move to St Petersburg to do this work," said the former head of Austrian diplomacy.

Kneissl served as Austrian Foreign Minister from 2017 to 2019. This summer, she lived in Ryazan Oblast.

Kneissl joined the board of directors of Russian oil giant Rosneft as an independent director in 2021. She resigned from the Rosneft board in May 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Kneissl's personal website says, "Karin Kneissl involuntarily left her home country as a result of persistent death threats and a de facto ban on working in Austria."

Kneissl made headlines in 2018 when Putin attended her wedding. The two were photographed dancing.