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Russian government okays bill denouncing agreement with Ukraine on cultural centers

The agreement provided for the establishment of a Ukrainian Centre of National Culture in Moscow and a Russian Center of Science and Culture in Kiev

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/. Russia’s governmental commission on legislative activities has approved a bill denouncing the 1998 agreement with Ukraine on the operation of information and cultural centers, which was drafted by the Russian foreign ministry, a source close to the commission told TASS.

"The governmental commission on legislative activities has supported the bill," the source said.

The agreement provided for the establishment of a Ukrainian Centre of National Culture in Moscow and a Russian Center of Science and Culture in Kiev. Neither of them is operating now.

According to the explanatory note to the bill, the Russian Center was unveiled in leased premises in Kiev in 2007. "After 2014, it operated in difficult conditions and was attacked by nationalist groups many times. The Center wound up its operation in 2021 after Kiev imposed sanctions on Russia’s agency for international humanitarian cooperation and the Center as its office in Ukraine," according to the note.

Ukraine’s Center of National Culture was housed in a 4,335.5 square meter building that had been bought from Moscow’s Property Fund in November 1998. The Centre suspended its work after the beginning of Russia’s special military operation when Kiev severed diplomatic relations with Moscow and the Center’s Ukrainian employees left for Ukraine. "However, the building is still enjoying functional immunity as the agreement is formally in force," the document says.

Under the agreement, the centers’ activities are administered by the ambassadors, which is actually impossible in the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries. According to the explanatory note, the future use of the Ukraine-owned building will be regulated by Russian laws.

The agreement was signed for a term of five years to be automatically extended for five-year periods until any of the parties notifies the other party about its intention to terminate it at least six months before the expiration of the relevant period. The current five-year period started on April 14, 2022 and was supposed to expire on April 14, 2027. Early denunciation is possible.

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