The Russian Foreign Ministry called the blocking of accounts of the Goethe Institute a response to restrictions against the Russian House in Germany

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained the blocking of the accounts of the German Goethe Institute in Russia as a “proportionate response” to similar measures against the Russian House of Science and Culture (RDNK) in Berlin in December 2022. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, admitted that the accounts of the German institute could be unfrozen after there was a “complete and unconditional” unblocking of the accounts of the Russian House in Germany.

The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Moscow had repeatedly warned for several months “about the inevitability of such actions if the German authorities did not stop exerting administrative and political pressure on the RDNK.” “Berlin, however, chose to ignore our unequivocal warnings,” reads the comments Mrs Zakharova.

The Russian Foreign Ministry warned Germany in January that if the restrictions against the Russian House in Berlin were not lifted, then Moscow would take similar measures against the branches of the Goethe Institute in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. At the end of March, the German institute canceled language exams, the German Foreign Ministry later confirmed the blocking of the institution’s accounts.

Leonid Uvarchev