Overview
- Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Ambassador Alexander Graf Lambsdorff on Monday to protest CDU lawmaker Roderich Kiesewetter’s Kyiv meeting with Achmed Sakajew, who Moscow labels a terrorist, and warned of consequences.
- Berlin called the claims unfounded, and Lambsdorff said Russia offered no evidence and that a lawmaker’s free mandate to meet interlocutors is a core part of democratic practice.
- Kiesewetter confirmed the meeting and called Russia a terror state, saying he meets exiled figures like Sakajew because they back Ukraine and argue for a free Chechnya.
- Kiesewetter’s office says the meeting occurred on April 7, the same day the FSB says it designated Sakajew’s group as terrorist, leaving the order of events unclear.
- Moscow’s protest comes as the FSB publicizes security cases, including the recent arrest of a German citizen in Pyatigorsk, and as Russia cites alleged Chechen-linked raids in Belgorod and Kursk while tensions with Germany keep worsening over the war in Ukraine.