Livetalk with Christian Wehrschütz

Christian Wehrschütz, "convinced Styrian" and Balkan expert, was born on October 9, 1961 in Graz. He was appointed ORF correspondent in Belgrade in November 1999 and covers the whole of the former Yugoslavia and Albania.

Since 1991, Christian Wehrschütz has been working for ORF, where he first spent eight months in the "Teletext" editorial department and then seven years in ORF radio.

In November 1999, Wehrschütz was sent to Belgrade as an expert on the Balkans, where he was responsible for reporting on the former Yugoslavia and Albania. In September 2015, Wehrschütz was also entrusted with the management of the new ORF foreign office in Kiev. Since February 24, 2022, the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wehrschütz has been working as an ORF correspondent in the war zone as a journalist.

The law graduate and militia officer speaks English, Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, French, Slovenian, Macedonian and has a good basic knowledge of Albanian; he is also a military interpreter for Russian and Ukrainian.

In his book "Im Kreuzfeuer - Am Balkan zwischen Brüssel und Belgrad" (Molden Verlag), ORF journalist Christian Wehrschütz sheds light on the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia, in particular the developments from 2000 onwards. In his 2013 book "Brennpunkt Balkan - Blutige Vergangenheit, ungewisse Zukunft" (Focus on the Balkans - Bloody past, uncertain future), he also deals with the situation in the Balkans. And in his 2014 book "Brennpunkt Ukraine - Gespräche über ein gespaltenes Land", he talks to influential politicians, political and military players - on the side of the Ukrainian volunteers and the pro-Russian rebels - as well as "ordinary" people.

In 2014, Christian Wehrschütz was voted "Journalist of the Year" by the editors of "Der österreichische Journalist". In 2022, he was honored with the special prize of the Romy jury for his reporting from Ukraine.