Vienna maintains an informal channel of communication with Moscow and calls for dialogue with Russia despite the Ukrainian conflict, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said.

“The West should continue talking with Russia the way the US government is doing. International platforms such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations should be used for further talks with Russia. it is the global responsibility of Western countries”, - he pointed out in an interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper.

Schallenberg emphasized that Vienna continued to communicate with Moscow through informal channels: “Russia has not disappeared from the map, remaining the EU’s biggest geographical neighbor and the world’s major nuclear power”.