At a government press conference in Berlin, German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Martin Giese said that closing the Russian House in Berlin would require Germany to terminate existing agreements with Russia governing, among other things, the activities of the Goethe-Institut in Moscow. DW reported this.
According to Giese, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the German government suspended all forms of intergovernmental cooperation with Russia, including in the cultural sphere. The federal government is also reviewing the legal framework governing the Russian House. However, intergovernmental agreements with Russia regulating the activities of cultural institutions remain important to Germany and “cannot simply be annulled”, DW quoted the Foreign Ministry spokesperson as saying.
Giese noted that amid EU sanctions against Rossotrudnichestvo, the agency that oversees the Russian House, its activities are already severely restricted.
“Clearly, any attempts at influence or disinformation operations originating from there are being monitored by the security authorities,” Sonja Koch, a spokesperson for Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior, added at the press conference.
The Russian House officially operates as a cultural centre, but reports have recently emerged that the facility may be used by Russian intelligence services as a cover. German broadcaster WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on French documents indicating a possible connection. The Russian House is run by Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian state agency subordinate to the Russian Foreign Ministry.