Russia is not trying to divide the EU, insists Putin ahead of rare visit to Western Europe

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Vladimir Putin has insisted Russia is not trying to split the European Union.

Ahead of a rare visit to Western Europe, the Russian president said: “We do not pursue the objective of dividing anything or anyone in the EU.

“We are far more interested in the EU being united and flourishing because the EU is our most important trading and economic partner.”

Mr Putin’s comments came during an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF before he travels to Vienna on Tuesday for his first bilateral trip to a West European nation in almost a year.

He will meet government and business leaders to mark 50 years since the Russian and Austrian energy firms Gazprom and OMV first signed a gas supply deal.

The issue of EU sanctions, imposed on Moscow because of its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, will hang over any official talks that take place at a business conference attended by envoys from both countries.

The Kremlin’s ties with EU countries remain strained after the annexation of Crimea, Moscow’s involvement in Syria and the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

However, Austria’s coalition government, which includes conservatives and pro-Putin far-right ministers, was one of the few that did not expel Russian diplomats over the double agent’s attempted assassination, which the UK blamed on Moscow – an accusation the Russian administration denies.

Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz pointed to Vienna’s “traditionally good contacts” with Russia, and said his government would use their relationship to press Moscow for answers over the nerve agent attack.

He said Vienna was “of the opinion that it is important to maintain channels of dialogue”.

Austria, which takes over the rotating EU presidency in July, has said it wants to act as a bridge between East and West.

On Tuesday Mr Putin will meet Mr Kurz, a 31-year-old conservative who became chancellor in December, as well as vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, who heads far-right coalition partner the Freedom Party of Austria.

The anti-migration and eurosceptic political party has long taken a positive view of the Russian leader, with Mr Strache and other leaders travelling to Moscow in December 2016 to sign a cooperation agreement with the main Kremlin party, United Russia.

“We decide pragmatically whether to cooperate with someone politically,” Mr Putin said when asked in the interview about Moscow’s ties with far-right parties.

“We try to work with those who publicly express the wish themselves to work with us,” he added.

Last week the Freedom Party called for sanctions on Moscow to be lifted, with Mr Strache saying they had “damaged our Austrian economy” by cutting exports to Russia.

But Mr Kurz and his conservatives, who control Austria’s EU policy, have said his government will toe the European Union line.