Russia to close branches of Germany's Goethe-Institut after drone spat, foreign minister says
Lavrov said 3 Goethe-Institut branches will close after Germany blamed Moscow for a drone incident and shut Russian cultural sites.
- On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Russia will close Germany's Goethe-Institut cultural centers following Germany's accusation that Russia caused a drone incident at the Leipzig and Halle Airport.
- Germany's response to the incident included closing a Russian cultural center in Berlin and a consulate in Bonn, which Lavrov stated Germany "deliberately took this step" to provoke the closure.
- The centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg had remained open "despite all the Ukrainian complications in our relations with the West," Lavrov added, with the first institute opening in Moscow in 1992.
- On Wednesday, Lavrov's deputy Alexander Grushko warned Russia would retaliate "very soon" for the Bonn consulate closure, echoing Russia's 2018 British Council closure following a diplomatic spat with Britain.
- President Vladimir Putin accused Germany on Tuesday of planting evidence to blame Moscow for the incident, further straining already tense diplomatic relations between the two nations.
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(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Shin-young = As tensions between the two countries escalate after Germany blamed Russia for the drone attack on Leipzig-Halle Airport last month...
Misleading signals from the Kremlin, who first claims to be willing to open a negotiation with Ukraine, but then makes a half-turn back. "In the meantime" - the president explained...
Russia will close the German cultural centres on its territory," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday as part of a retaliatory measure reflecting the growing tensions between Moscow and European countries that are helping Ukraine to resist the invasion launched by the Kremlin four and a half years ago.
Russia will close the Goethe-Institut centres in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg after Germany's decision to close the Russian home in Berlin.
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