The Russian government will close Goethe-Institut branches across the country in response to Germany’s planned closure of the Russian House in Berlin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Goethe-Institut is Germany’s international cultural institute and has its main Russian branch in Moscow as well as sites in St Petersburg and Novosibirsk.<\/p>\n
Lavrov said the closures were a response to Berlin’s decision to shut the Russian House of Science and Culture in the German capital, according to the Interfax news agency. The state-funded centre promotes Russian language and culture.<\/p>\n
“Of course they will be closed after our cultural centre was expelled
from there [from Berlin],” Lavrov said at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.<\/p>\n
The German government announced the closure after an explosives-laden drone was found at Leipzig\/Halle Airport in early August.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Berlin said publicly for the first time that it holds Moscow responsible for the attempted attack, a claim Russia has firmly rejected. The drone, which was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane, failed to detonate.<\/p>\n
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul announced punitive measures, including the closure of the Russian House and the Russian consulate in Bonn.<\/p>\n
Lavrov argued that German authorities did not provide evidence, saying they had seen a drone and concluded that it looked Russian.<\/p>\n
Moscow has described the incident as a “provocation” serving only the interests of militaristic circles in Europe and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Lavrov said Moscow’s response to what he described as the German government’s anti-Russian sanctions was a matter of self-respect. He also accused the West of continuing to rely on sanctions and pressure rather than negotiations in the conflict over Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Despite tensions with the West over Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Goethe-Institut had until now been able to continue operating. It is one of the last German institutions still active in Russia.<\/p>\n
Russia has declared numerous foreign foundations and organizations “undesirable,” effectively banning them from operating in the country.<\/p>\n
The Goethe-Institut has significantly scaled back its activities in Russia because of the conflict over Ukraine, but has continued to organize cultural events.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the charg\u00e9 d’affaires of the German Embassy in Moscow to protest against Berlin’s measures announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The ministry said the diplomat had been summoned over what it described as Berlin’s anti-Russian actions and statements by the German leadership.<\/p>\n
Moscow rejected what it called unfounded allegations of Russian involvement in the Leipzig incident. In a statement issued after the meeting, it accused Berlin of an open provocation aimed at undermining Russian-German relations and warned that the German government’s actions would be met with a tough response.<\/p>\n
Russia has also promised to take further retaliation, potentially including the closure of the German consulate general in St Petersburg.<\/p>\n
The two countries have previously closed each other’s consulates as part of tit-for-tat measures that have also involved the expulsion of diplomats and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Russian government will close Goethe-Institut branches across the country in response to Germany’s planned closure of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,76,60809,60808,5857,2986,59986,60807],"class_list":["post-83993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-german","tag-goethe-institut","tag-lavrov","tag-moscow","tag-russian","tag-russian-german","tag-the-goethe-institut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}