In the long arc of European diplomacy, moments arrive when the instruments of dialogue become casualties of the very conflicts they were built to manage. This autumn, Germany and Russia have reached such a moment: Moscow has ordered the closure of Germany's consulate in St. Petersburg and expelled all Goethe-Institut staff from Russian soil, a direct answer to Berlin's earlier shuttering of Russian diplomatic and cultural facilities following accusations that Moscow orchestrated a drone strike on Leipzig Airport — a freight hub central to Western aid for Ukraine. What began as a single contest