ST. PETERSBURG, June 15. /TASS/. Russia's relations with Western countries resemble a "messy divorce," with clarifications and courts yet to come, Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl said on Thursday.

Kneissl told TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that relations between Russia and the West can be compared to "messy divorce."

"It looks like a messy divorce. Unfortunately, it’s a very violent divorce. And like in a divorce between two individuals, when you have such a violent situation, one day we’ll have to clarify matters by legal action. And that still has to come. You’ll have to have some trials, legal procedures to get back the property, for instance," she continued.

The former top diplomat recalled that the word "divorce" was first used in this vein in February 2022. "I think it was [Kremlin] spokesman Dmitry Peskov who used the word ‘divorce’ and then I heard it from Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov. So this was a new term and in the beginning, it intrigued me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. But, given the overall position and the overall action, [that is what it is] in particular, [when talking about] the cancellation of Russian artists, of Russian sportspeople by those 42 countries and, above that, also all the illegal actions such as confiscating Russian property, first of all, the assets of the Central Bank, which was annulled, then also the confiscation of Russian property, whether it was Gazprom [in] Germany or refineries of Rosneft in Germany," she pointed out.

Kneissl stressed that students and journalists often ask her, "Will everything be OK?" "This very special Russian phrase, which I cannot really share because I understand the hope that is behind the notion ‘Everything will be OK’. But what does OK [mean]? How many [time it will take]? How long [will it take]? So I think that there will be a new situation, not for everybody, but it’d be good. And we’ll see how long it will remain better for some. But so much has happened. And if I take myself as an individual, I am not Russian but I am like a collateral damage of the all [this] thing (the Ukrainian conflict - TASS). So much has happened to me that I don’t even plan to fly to Europe. I actually don’t plan, because it was too much."

"As a Christian, you should pardon and pardon. And I think it was Jesus Christ who said: ‘Don’t throw the pearls to the pigs.’ So there's a limit to everything," Kneissl concluded.