A French Interior Ministry expulsion order states that the Russian House in Berlin is used as a cover by Russian intelligence services. As far as is publicly known, this is the first official assessment of this kind by an authority of an EU Member State.
On Wednesday, 29 July 2026, the French Interior Ministry issued an expulsion order against Russian media executive Xenia Fedorova. Fedorova was the head of the French branch of the Russian state broadcaster RT. Following the EU ban on RT in 2022, RT France was liquidated in 2023. The French government regards her as a Kremlin propagandist and agent of influence.
The following day, 30 July 2026, the Interior and Economy ministries jointly ordered her funds and economic resources to be frozen for six months. The order was published in the Journal officiel on 31 July 2026. It is based on the French Monetary and Financial Code, in particular Article L. 562-2-1 and following provisions. This legal instrument was expanded in 2024 as part of legislation designed to prevent foreign interference.
On 3 August 2026, the Paris Administrative Court rejected Fedorova’s urgent application against the expulsion order. This did not constitute a final judicial ruling on the lawfulness of the expulsion.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the newspaper La Provence that Fedorova had come to France as a Russian citizen in order to act as an agent of influence, relay Kremlin propaganda using Kremlin methods and thereby disrupt public and democratic debate.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told RTL on Friday, 31 July, that the expulsion order did not infringe freedom of expression. He said it was very well substantiated and relied on numerous statements that systematically repeated Kremlin propaganda about France’s engagement, the war in Ukraine and its causes and motives.
President Emmanuel Macron and members of the French government had previously described Fedorova publicly as a Kremlin propagandist.
WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung have obtained the expulsion order. According to their reporting, the document contains two statements directly concerning the Russian House on Friedrichstraße in Berlin.
First, it states that Fedorova had “recently sought the post of director of the Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin”. Second, the ministry describes the institution’s function: its work is intended to ensure that the Russian diaspora supports Moscow’s policies.
The Russian House in Berlin is described as being “used as a cover by Russian intelligence services”.
This constitutes an explicit official assessment by an authority of an EU Member State that goes beyond the established description of the institution as an instrument of propaganda and influence and identifies an intelligence-cover function.
This is the assessment of the French Interior Ministry in an individual administrative act concerning one person. It is not a judicial finding about the Russian House. The order itself is not public; WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung have obtained it. The statements concerning the Russian House must therefore be cited as the assessment of a French authority, not as an independently established fact.
German security authorities have so far not publicly linked the Russian House to Russian intelligence services. Asked whether the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution shared the French assessment, a spokesperson said the agency did not, as a matter of principle, comment publicly on matters involving possible intelligence findings or activities.
The Russian House itself stressed, in response to questions, what it described as the purely cultural character of the institution, based on a bilateral intergovernmental agreement that remains in force. It said it did not comment on domestic political debates in Germany or statements by individuals. Regarding Fedorova, the House said it had no information that she was to become director.
The German government refers to the bilateral agreements with Russia when explaining the continued operation of the Russian House. According to government sources, the Federal Foreign Office is also concerned that Moscow could respond by closing the remaining Goethe-Instituts in Russia. Politically, both lines of argument depend on the Russian House continuing to be treated as a cultural institution.
If the French assessment is accurate, that cultural classification comes under substantial pressure as a central political justification. The deadline for giving ordinary notice to terminate the 2011 operational agreement at the end of the current contractual period runs until 6 December 2026.
The legal framework for the Russian House consists of five agreements covering different matters. Four contain provisions for ordinary termination. Only the 2013 property agreement, which provides for a 99-year term, contains no unilateral right of ordinary termination. That does not automatically exclude extraordinary termination or suspension under general rules of international law. Public debate frequently compresses these separate agreements into a single “99-year treaty”.
As of 7 August 2026. All information on the expulsion order and its statements concerning the Russian House is based on reporting by WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung; the document itself is not publicly accessible.