Germany says it is reviewing the legal basis for the Russian House to operate in Berlin

Germany says it is reviewing the legal basis for the Russian House to operate in Berlin

The German government is "comprehensively and continuously" reviewing the international legal basis for the activities of the Russian House in Berlin, according to a dpa report published by Die Welt.

The dispute around the institution, which has already been going on for several years, intensified after a joint publication by Süddeutsche Zeitung and WDR. It cited excerpts from a French Interior Ministry document claiming that the Russian House may be used by Russian intelligence services "as cover." After that, several German politicians called for the institution to be shut down, RTVI notes.

Germany's Foreign Ministry fears that closing the center could lead to retaliatory measures against the Goethe Institutes in Moscow and St. Petersburg, whose activities the Russian authorities have already restricted.

Germany, according to the report, could terminate the 2011 agreement regulating the work of Russian and German cultural institutes. In that case, it would cease to be in force in June 2027, but Russia would need to be notified of this by December 6, 2026.

The Russian embassy rejects the accusations against the Russian House and said the center operates openly and complies with German law. The Russian House itself calls itself an "exclusively cultural institution."

🔵The Russian House is run by Rossotrudnichestvo, which has been on the European Union sanctions list since 2022. Under a separate agreement with Russia, Germany pays the property tax for the center's building — in 2026, it amounted to 70,000 euros.

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