Russia will close German cultural centres as Moscow and Europe spar over Ukraine

Russia will shutter German cultural centres across the country, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday, in a tit-for-tat measure that reflected soured relations and deepening tensions between Moscow and European countries helping Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion.

Lavrov’s announcement came after Berlin blamed Moscow for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport. Germany said Wednesday it was consequently closing both the Russian Consulate in Bonn and the Russian House cultural center in the German Capital.

Western officials have repeatedly accused Moscow of running a campaign of sabotage and disruption in their countries with the aim of undermining support for Ukraine and destabilizing European nations, something Russian officials deny.  Europe increasingly views itself as facing what it calls a hybrid war with Russia, marked by tools such as cyberwarfare and disinformation as well as a conventional military threat. Each side accuses the other of State terrorism.

The tension has continued for months and grown into one of the greatest foreign and defense policy challenges for countries in the European Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin is testing the West with tactics that fall “just below the threshold of war” and is determined to “harass NATO members,” the head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency said at the end of last year.

The British government summoned the top Russian diplomat in London on Thursday to protest what it called Russia’s “egregious and reckless attack” on the German airport last month. The UK government called the incident the “latest in a clear pattern of attempts by Russia” to undermine European security.

In Finland on Thursday, more than 2,000 people took part in the biggest civil defense exercise in Europe since the end of World War II. Among the threats envisaged were missile strikes from neighboring Russia.

Meanwhile, Norwegian authorities seized a Russian vessel in the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard on Wednesday at the request of Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

The seizure was part of a global effort to enforce a $4.22 billion arbitration award and comes after a European push to seize vessels belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, which officials say contravenes international sanctions. Lavrov said that cultural centres belonging to Germany’s Goethe-Institut would be closed in Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, adding that any other response would show a lack of “self-respect” on Russia’s part.

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Lavrov said that Germany “could not have failed to understand” that the closure of Russian House would “signify the end of their cultural presence in Russia.”