Russia to close Goethe-Institut centres as Germany tensions escalate

Russia says it will close Germany’s Goethe-Institut cultural centres, Russian state media has reported, after Germany blamed Moscow for a drone incident at the Leipzig/Halle airport last month and said it would shutter a Russian cultural centre in Berlin and a consulate in Bonn.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia would close the centres in the cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, following Germany’s decision to halt the operation of a Russian cultural centre in Berlin.

“They [Germany] deliberately took this step – they could not have failed to understand – which means the end of their cultural presence in Russia,” Lavrov said, according to state news agency TASS.

The Goethe-Institut cultural centres had stayed open “despite all the Ukrainian complications in our relations with the West,” he added.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Germany was displaying an inconsistent and absurd position by choosing to shutter the Russian consulate in Bonn.

Last month’s incident involving an explosive-laden drone that started the chain of events has heightened fears over a sabotage campaign that the European Union and NATO say is a Russian attempt to destabilise Ukraine’s allies.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Tuesday accused Russia of being behind the “hybrid attack”. The drone at Leipzig-Halle airport was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane on the evening of August 4 and defused.

On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin accused Germany of planting evidence in order to blame Moscow for the drone incident.

EU response

“It is clear that it has all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Ireland.

“The question is, what do we do about this?”

Kallas said the EU had summoned the Russian envoy, and member states were doing the same.

“We will not let an act of such gravity go unpunished,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, adding he had called in Russia’s envoy in Paris.

Kallas said that EU foreign ministers agreed to keep working on a proposal to impose sanctions on 1,600 individuals and entities linked to Russia’s military industry in the hope of adopting them next month.

“Seeing these hybrid attacks across Europe, I think these are also wake-up calls for the countries who have not been so strong … on this,” she said.

“If we want to end this war, we all have to focus our efforts. Take it to a new level.”

Russia’s first Goethe-Institut opened in Moscow in 1992, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Following a diplomatic spat with Britain, Russia ordered the closure of its British Council in 2018.

On Wednesday, Lavrov’s deputy, Alexander Grushko, said Russia would retaliate “very soon” for the closure of the Bonn consulate.