Invited to the ball
Saxon mayor celebrates Russia in St. Petersburg
08/29/2023, 9:39 p.m
Many German politicians are at a distance from Russia, a Saxon mayor does the opposite, and not just politically. He travels to St. Petersburg to a ball that wants to revive the “cultural code” of the old days of the tsars and promotes good togetherness. He does not mention the invasion of Ukraine.
According to a report by the news portal Zeit Online, the mayor of the Saxon city of Freiberg gave a speech at a ball in St. Petersburg and spoke out in favor of “good cooperation” between Germany and Russia. The non-party Sven Krüger has confirmed his participation in the Petrovsky Ball, reported Zeit Online. There he found a lot of praise for Russia, without mentioning the war of aggression against Ukraine.
According to Zeit online, the organizers announced that they wanted to revive the “Russian cultural codex” of the old days of the tsars. Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to have even sent a greeting: “This wonderful project takes us back to the brightest chapters of Russian history,” he said.
According to Zeit Online, Krüger said at the ball, among other things, that he was an optimist and that’s why he started learning Russian a year ago. And he is convinced that Russia and Germany “will find togetherness again in the future and overcome difficult times”.
Organizer ‘stands with Russia’
Krüger has been the mayor of Freiberg since 2015. The city is around 35 kilometers southwest of Dresden and has around 40,000 inhabitants. Krüger was a member of the SPD for a long time. However, he resigned in 2018. He was angry about the policies of the grand coalition, even ashamed, he said at the time.
When asked by Zeit Online, Krüger stated that he had been at the ball at the invitation of organizer Hans-Joachim Frey. Frey has long had close ties to Russia and Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin, Zeit Online continued. In the spring of this year, Putin awarded Frey a medal, and on this occasion Frey said: “I would like to say: I am on the side of Russia.”