Hundreds of German officials and employees in Russia, especially from the cultural sector, will have to leave the country after Moscow’s decision to impose a cap on this presence in its territory, one more effect of the diplomatic tension between the two countries derived from the Russian invasion. from Ukraine.
“The Russian Foreign Ministry made public in April its decision to introduce a limit on the number of personnel in our missions abroad and in German intermediary organizations in Russia,” confirmed the German Foreign Ministry, which described the Russian sanction of “unilateral, unjustified and incomprehensible decisionâ€.
The sanctioning measure, which the German authorities tried to stop without success based on negotiations since April, will be applied as of June 1. Although it includes officials from the embassy and consulates, it mainly affects teachers from German schools such as the one in Moscow, kindergarten teachers and even teachers who work in Russian schools, as well as teachers and employees of the Goethe-Institut, the Institute for German Language and Culture Abroad. It also hits Russians who work for German institutions, who will have to leave their jobs.
The German government has not given figures, but the German media speak of “hundreds” of officials to be expelled, without specifying more. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the maximum number of employed Germans who will be able to stay in Russia established by Moscow would be 350 people. The expulsions represent “a significant cut in all areas of our presence in Russia,” said the German Foreign Ministry, which is preparing a similar response. “Regarding the ceiling of Russian presence in Germany, the German government will ensure that in practice there is also a real balance,” the ministry said.
This measure to cancel Germany’s cultural and educational presence in Russia follows the expulsion at the end of last month of more than twenty German diplomats, in retaliation for a previous similar decision taken by Berlin, which never revealed the exact number of Russians sent. back. German and Anglo-Saxon media say that there were also about twenty. At the time, Russia announced the expulsions as a reciprocal measure, and the German Foreign Ministry said Berlin and Moscow had been in contact for weeks about a reduction in Russian intelligence services in Germany.
The educational field was one of the branches of German foreign action in Russia, within the many fields of cooperation before the Russian aggression against Ukraine forced Germany to turn diplomatically, economically and energetically, and to become involved in the supply of weapons to Kyiv.
