The German government has formally accused Russia of carrying out a hybrid attack last month at Leipzig/Halle Airport, where a drone with a detonator was found Aug. 5 near a Ukrainian transport plane. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said at a news conference on Sept. 1 that Germany would respond by closing the Russian House in Berlin and Russia’s consulate general in Bonn. Under a Russian-German intergovernmental agreement, the work of the Russian House in the German capital is directly tied to the activity of the Goethe-Institut in Russia.
Interior Minister Dobrindt said the perpetrators and organizers of the “hybrid attack” acted on behalf of Russia:
“Taken together, police investigations, patterns of attack, and intelligence findings point to Russian responsibility for the attempted attack at Leipzig Airport,” Dobrindt said. “The German government therefore concludes that Russia is responsible for the hybrid attack in Leipzig on August 4.”
Foreign Minister Wadephul added:
“We do not view Leipzig as an isolated event, but see it in conjunction with other hybrid actions. The Russian leadership has deliberately decided to further worsen our already very strained relations.”
Wadephul announced that Russia’s consulate general in Bonn would be closed on Sept. 18 and that the agreement governing the Russian House in Berlin would be terminated in response to the incident in Leipzig. He also promised continued support for Ukraine and announced tighter controls on Russian citizens entering Germany.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow would respond to Berlin’s decision in standard fashion:
“Moscow will respond to all anti-Russian actions. They [the German authorities] invented a pretext. At the same time, Berlin itself is completely stained both by fueling the Ukrainian conflict and by participating in terrorist attacks against civilians… The Russian House had long been bothering them, so they were looking for something to latch onto.”
In an interview with the state-controlled news agency TASS, Igor Chaika, the head of the government agency Rossotrudnichestvo, suggested that the Goethe-Institut in Moscow could be closed:
“We won’t go beyond Rossotrudnichestvo’s jurisdiction, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the principle of reciprocity affects not only the Goethe-Institut in Russia but also, unfortunately, many other bilateral initiatives.”
Russian-German intergovernmental agreements directly link the Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin (as the Russian House is officially known) to the Goethe-Institut’s work in Russia. After the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow restricted the Goethe-Institut’s operations, including by blocking the German cultural center’s bank accounts in Russia.
