Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Germany’s Goethe-Institut cultural centers would be closed on Russian territory.
In remarks carried by Russian news agencies TASS and Interfax, Lavrov said Goethe-Institut locations would be closed in the Russian cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
The statement came after Germany said Russia was responsible for an attempted drone attack at the Leipzig/Halle Airport.
Germany’s response included closing a Russian cultural center in Berlin and a Russian consulate in Bonn. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Germany of planting evidence to blame Moscow for the incident.
“They 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. He added the centers had remained open “despite all the Ukrainian complications in our relations with the West.”
Russia’s first Goethe-Institut opened in Moscow in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2018, Russia ordered the closure of the British Council following a diplomatic dispute with the UK.
On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow would retaliate “very soon” over Germany’s closure of the Russian consulate in Bonn.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated…
