Putin’s envoy wants provosts fired at universities without ‘patriotic movements’ on campus

President Putin’s envoy to Russia’s Far East, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev, met with students at Far Eastern Federal University on Wednesday and declared that institutions of higher learning nationwide should organize “patriotic movements” on campus. Any school without one of these projects, he argued, should fire its curriculum provost and hire one who will rectify the situation. 

Trutnev also promised to gather provosts from across the region later that same day to “review their work.”

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian authorities have augmented the country’s education system at various levels, inserting new lesson plans and promoting projects meant to cultivate “patriotism,” deference to the state, and support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine and the West. Teachers have been pressured to adopt propagandistic curricula, and numerous education workers who have expressed criticism of the invasion of Ukraine have lost their jobs, often due to reports filed against them by their own students.