+ -

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the European Union

Submitted on 2020-12-29 15:53:49

Russian Foreign Ministry statement on extending the Russian list of German citizens banned from entering the Russian Federation

---

For a long period of time, the story about a “Russian trace” in the hacking incident concerning the computer networks of the German Bundestag in 2015 has been consistently promoted by official Berlin as part of its media and political campaign. The purpose of the campaign was to create a pretext for introducing a new package of unilateral sanctions against Russia by the European Union (EU). The Council of the European Union issued the respective decision on October 22, 2020, with regard to two Russian individuals and one Russian legal entity.

Russia’s representatives have repeatedly proposed to their German counterparts that bilateral expert consultations be conducted, based on the data which Germany allegedly has and which indicates the possibility of Russian citizens being involved in the 2015 incident, in order to identify the source of the malicious cyber activity; however, the German officials have been persistently ignoring these proposals. This approach demonstrates that Berlin was never actually interested in a genuine investigation into the so-called Russian hackers’ case and the entire situation was originally designed as yet another provocation against our country.

In response to the above mentioned destructive action on behalf of the EU, Moscow has made a decision to extend its retaliatory list of German citizens banned from entering the Russian Federation. According to the diplomatic principle of reciprocity, the new persons on the Russian restricted list include senior officials of German security and intelligence agencies which are part of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence. The restrictions have been imposed under Federal Law No. 114-FZ On the Procedures for Entry to and Exit from the Russian Federation dated August 15, 1996.

Should the German officials continue the confrontational course of action, we reserve the right to take further response measures.