An internal audit was appointed by the Ministry of Education and Science in relation to the People’s Friendship University of Russia (PFUR) due to the Ukrainian flags hanging in the main building of the university – the stand of the Ukrainian community.
“After the consequences of this event, an official check was appointed by the decision of the Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Nikolayevich Falkov, according to its results, the perpetrators will be punished,” said Deputy Minister Konstantin Mogilevsky.
Mogilevsky added that the demonstration at the university building was “unacceptable for the flags of the state ruled by the neo-Nazi regime”. At the same time, the deputy minister said that it is necessary to support Ukrainian students at Russian universities, since they are “in a difficult situation”.
Commenting on the situation at RUDN University, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, said that the flag of Ukraine is no longer suitable.
“In any case, for us now it is de facto the flag of the regime that mainly supports the nationalists and that we are currently fighting, conducting a special military operation. It is impossible to isolate it under any circumstances, ”the Kremlin spokesman said at a briefing.
The information that Ukrainian flags were hung next to the Day of Defenders of the Fatherland celebrations at the university took place on Telegram channels.
Official location of the university
According to the position of the university and the student council, Ukrainian flags were hung by Ukrainian citizens at the citizens’ exhibition, where national qualifications of various states were exhibited.
“We, the students of the most international university in the country, are not ready to turn a blind eye to the cruelty and persecution of others on a national basis. While Russian culture is being canceled around the world and Russia is being made a scapegoat, we defend the position of mutual respect and honor the traditions of peoples from more than 150 countries whose students study at RUDN University, participate in national exhibitions and represent them. Cultures unite in civic organizations,” says an open letter from the RUDN Student Council.
Sergey Bazavluk, Vice-Chancellor of RUDN University, said at Rossiya 24 that the mission of the university is “to unite people of different nationalities”.
“I partially understand the people raising this wave of information given the current situation. But there is a point here that people who are not familiar with the educational activities of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and its mission to bring people of different nationalities together, actually focus on the flag of Ukraine.
RUDN graduate Mikhail (renamed) told socialbites.ca that the fraternities at the university were de facto “a student council-level lobbying structure for people from the national regions of the Russian Federation and former republics of the USSR.”
“I mean, we have solved various kinds of problems, especially if one of the students under our supervision has problems with learning. The Russians did not comply with this plan in any way. For them, the administration offered compatriots geographically: from the Bryansk region, from the Pskov region, etc.
Mikhail explained that Ukraine’s booth at the citizens’ festival in PFUR has always been – for example, in 2014.
“I cannot say that the Ukrainian community was somehow directly in the RUDN and influenced anything,” says the graduate.