&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Russia to shut German culture centres after Germany closes Russian consulate")
Russia will close German Goethe-Institut cultural centres, following a confrontation between the two nations over an explosive-laden drone found at the Leipzig/Halle airport. It said that Russian state media reported, quoting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that Berlin deliberately made the move to blame Moscow. He said that the centres in cities like Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg will be closed.
“They [Germany] deliberately took this step – they could not have failed to understand – which means the end of their cultural presence in Russia," said Lavrov according to state news agency TASS.
The Goethe-Institut is a non-profit official cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany. It functions in over 100 countries with over 150 branches. Russia’s first Goethe-Institut opened in Moscow in 1992 after the fall of Soviet Russia. The institute managed to remain open despite “all the Ukrainian complications in our relations with the West,” said Lavrov.
But following an explosive-laden drone at Leipzig/Halle airport, Germany closed a Russian consulate in Bonn and a cultural centre in Berlin. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt accused Russia of being behind the “hybrid attack”. The drone was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane, and it was defused.
“It is clear that it has all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism,” said 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?” she said.
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Kallas said that the European Union is working on a plan to sanction 1,600 individuals and entities linked to Russia’s military industry. “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.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused Germany of planting evidence to frame Russia for the incident. Lavrov's deputy, Alexander Grushko, said Russia would retaliate very soon for the closure of the consulate in Bonn.
