Russia orders Germany's last consulate in Russia closed by Sept. 18, leaving one embassy each

Moscow also gave Goethe-Institut cultural centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg until Sunday, Sept. 13, to shut, days after Berlin closed Russia's Bonn consulate and the Russia House center.

The order. Russia ordered on Monday, Sept. 7, that Germany's consulate general in St. Petersburg close by Friday, Sept. 18, and told the German government's Goethe-Institut cultural centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg to shut by Sunday, Sept. 13. The trigger. It answers what Berlin did on Wednesday, Sept. 2, when Germany closed Russia's consulate in Bonn and the Russia House cultural center in Berlin. Both moves trace to Tuesday, Aug. 4, when an explosive-laden drone hit a parked cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport. Germany blamed Russian state entities; Moscow denies any part in it. (TS: Germany's Interior Minister said Sept. 1 that DNA and intelligence tie the operators to Russian state entities.) What is left. St. Petersburg was Germany's last consulate general in Russia, and Bonn was Russia's last in Germany. After Sept. 18 each country has exactly one mission left in the other: an embassy in the capital. "It was the German authorities who once again provoked a new round of escalation in bilateral relations. All responsibility for the consequences lies entirely with the German government." — Russian Foreign Ministry statement What next. German officials have not said how many staff leave St. Petersburg, and no NATO or EU statement has addressed the closures themselves.

What losing every consulate does to ordinary travelers:

Russians living in Germany must now use the Berlin embassy for passports, visas and civil documents.
Germans in Russia lose the only office outside Moscow that could help with an emergency passport or a detained citizen.
Roughly 60 Russian diplomats, including Consul General Oleg Krasnitsky, were ordered out of Bonn; counts including families run to about 70.

ContextThe order is a mirror image of Germany's move a week earlier. On Wednesday, Sept. 2, Berlin shut Russia's consulate in Bonn and the Russia House cultural center in Berlin; on Monday, Sept. 7, Moscow shut Germany's consulate general in St. Petersburg and two Goethe-Institut centers, the German government's language and culture agency abroad. Each closure took out the other side's last consulate — a diplomatic office outside the capital that handles passports, visas and citizens in trouble. This does not cut diplomatic relations: after Friday, Sept. 18, each country still keeps an embassy in the other's capital, and every consular task now runs through those two buildings. Both moves trace to one event, an explosive-carrying drone that struck a parked cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Tuesday, Aug. 4. Germany blamed Russian state entities. Moscow denies any role. Germany has not said how many staff must leave St. Petersburg, and the sources here give no count.