MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. The next meeting of the Russian-German high-level inter-departmental working group on security policies is to be held in Berlin on September 2-3, as follows from the Kremlin’s memos drafted ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow on August 20.
"The 14th full-scale meeting of the group took place in Moscow on November 14, 2019. The next one is due in Berlin on September 2-3, 2021," the memos say.
The working group was created under a decision by the Russian president and the German chancellor in 2003. In the wake of the events in Ukraine and Crimea the group’s activities were frozen at the initiative of the German side.
The group resumed its activities in 2017 in the form of meetings by subgroups. The first full-scale meeting of the group since 2012 was held in Berlin on November 12, 2018.
Bilateral cooperation
As follows from the Kremlin’s memos, Russia and Germany in recent years implemented large-scale bilateral projects in culture and the humanitarian sphere, including Russia-Germany cross years on different subjects.
Germany Year in Russia was launched on September 26 last year under the patronage of the two countries’ foreign ministries. The closing ceremony is to take place at the 9th St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum on November 11-13.
"In the context of the Ukrainian events of 2014 Berlin set course towards downscaling or freezing bilateral interaction practically on all tracks," the Kremlin’s memos say. "Germany blocked the operation of a number of bilateral formats. It was in the first ranks of the supporters of the EU’s sectoral sanctions against Russia as a ‘punishment’ for what was described as Crimea’s ‘annexation’ and the ‘destabilization’ in the southeast of Ukraine. Nevertheless, the political dialogue with Berlin and inter-parliamentary and inter-departmental contacts, have not been disrupted."
The Kremlin remarks that after the affair of the alleged "poisoning" of Alexey Navalny and his transportation to Germany for treatment on August 20, 2020 the German authorities set the course towards Russia’s containment again by putting forward the corresponding charges and urging its EU allies to impose another portion of anti-Russian sanctions, which Brussels did on October 15, 2020 and March 2, 2021. Also, the memos say that there were active speculations over the alleged complicity of Russia and its government agencies in crimes committed on German territory, including and attack by ‘Russian hackers’ on the computer network of the German parliament in 2015.