The authors of this paper have focused on the specifics of the formation of the image of Russia by the German mass media. The empirical basis of the work consisted of the publications of online versions of the German print press - Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, as well as the ones published by the Deutsche Welle media broadcaster (has been put on a list of ‘foreign agents” in Russia). In total, we have analyzed more than 70 publications, and more than 30 of them are presented in this paper, that appeared in the media during 2014-2021. As a result of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that the image of Russia formed by the German media cannot be characterized unambiguously. Among the total number of publications there are news stories of positive, negative and neutral type. Topics related to politics are more often covered in a negative way. However, publications devoted to cultural issues received more cordial reviews by the reporters.