Austrian walkout during Zelenskyy's address to parliament
A look back at the protest by Freedom Party lawmakers in Vienna during the Ukrainian president's speech to the National Council's lower house.
What happens when a wartime leader addresses a neutral country's parliament? On 30 March 2023, part of the Austrian chamber answered by leaving the room.
Lawmakers from the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria walked out of the lower house of the country's parliament while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke. They said the walkout was a protest against the violation of Austria's national principle of neutrality. The objection was aimed at the occasion itself, as they framed it, rather than at any particular passage of the speech.
The episode came days after another announcement that shaped the diplomatic mood in Europe. On 25 March 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July. The missiles would be operated by Russian forces, and it would be the first time Russian nuclear weapons had been deployed abroad since 1996.
The two developments were separate, but both were part of the wider debate over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In Vienna, that debate took the form of an empty row of seats during the Ukrainian president's address.
