The so-called “V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University”, created by the occupiers on the basis of the Ukrainian educational institutions, captured in Crimea, includes “13 institutes, one academy, six colleges and one technical school”. All of them, to a greater or lesser extent, are involved in supporting the so-called “special military operation”, that is, large-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as in the “scientific and ideological justification” of its “highly spiritual” goals.
What exactly is the criminal activity of the leadership of the “Crimean Federal University” and how it tries to influence the immature minds of the Crimean youth, Associate Professor Andrii Chvaliuk studied specifically for the Association of Reintegration of Crimea.
The “Crimean Federal University” (hereinafter – “CFU”) regularly collects “humanitarian aid” for participants in the Russian aggression. Large consignments of food, drinks, clothing and personal hygiene items are sent to the combat contact lines. Letters written by “employees and students” are also sent there, who are supposed to “morally support” the servicemen of the aggressor army and motivate them to commit new war crimes.
The branches of “CFU” are also engaged in “targeted assistance”, in particular, “employees and students” of the illegal “Sevastopol Economics and Humanities Institute of CFU” took “under their wing” the 810th Marine Brigade of the aggressor. This is the unit of the occupiers that we have described many times, which participated in the occupation of Crimea, in the destruction of Mariupol, and was noticed, among other things, in the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian servicemen defending the Kherson Region.
These facts do not prevent the “director of the institute” Natalia Lazitskaya from broadcasting calls for continued assistance to the 810th Brigade. What makes the “director” and similar “volunteers” accomplices to war crimes.
The so-called “Tavrichesky College of CFU” held a fair “Cuisines of the World” in September of this year, aimed at raising funds for participants in Russian aggression. “The college press service” reports that previously these events were held with the aim of providing financial assistance to those in need, such as purchasing medical equipment for the hematology department of a children’s hospital, helping an orphanage, and the students allegedly decided for themselves who to help.
But over the past two years, the peninsula’s orphanages obviously do not need help, and the money that students earn at the fairs is sent, as an ultimatum, at the request of the “management”, to “help the army”, within the framework of which generators and routers are purchased. “College teachers” also take part in raising funds to finance the war.
“Employees and students” of the so-called “South-Eastern Academy of CFU” are also forced to regularly transfer “funds earned from collecting waste paper” to the aggressor’s military personnel.
Since the “volunteer spirit” of the “students and teachers” at “CFU” requires constant supervision, this is the job of such “proxies” of the Russian special services as “non-profit public organizations” like the “People’s Front”.
This structure that has taken up residence at “CFU” is a “public movement” initiated by the Kremlin, the main tasks of which include “monitoring the execution of decrees and instructions of the President of Russia”, which makes this organization a classic “governmental public structure”. For supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the “People’s Front” is on the sanctions lists of the European Union and some other countries.
The coordinators of the “People’s Front”, together with the “CFU students” already recruited into its ranks, constantly persuade other students to “engage in volunteer activities” for the needs of the participants in the Russian aggression. The “acting rector” of the “CFU”Vladimir Kuryanov, Soivet propaganda functionnaire, described by us earlier, contributes to this in every possible way. He, among other things, is a “member of the regional headquarters” of the “People’s Front”. Kuryanov constantly boasts that he allegedly personally introduced, “in almost all structural divisions and branches of CFU”, the extortion of “humanitarian aid” from students for Russian soldiers, and forced them to weave camouflage nets en masse. It is not surprising that an entire “branch” of the “People’s Front” has been created at the “university” – its “youth team”, whose members go “on humanitarian missions” to Kursk and Mariupol.
Over the past three months, at least six “CFU students” have been noted in the “humanitarian mission” of the “youth wing” of the “People’s Front”, who, instead of studying, were sent to the Kursk region “to help in clothing and food warehouses”, up to 12 hours a day, in two-week shifts. The students’ “volunteer duties” included “receiving requests from military personnel and ensuring that their needs were addressed in a timely and effective manner,” “issuing vehicles to military personnel” in the combat zone, and “sorting humanitarian aid and assembling trailers for the uninterrupted delivery of aid” to the front.
These functions, more typical of combatants in the rear, resulted in the old Soviet apparatchik Kuryanov, who had previously promised to “eradicate freethinking” at “CFU,” where, in his opinion, there were “too many scientists,” receiving “gratitude” from the “head of the regional executive committee of the Crimean” “People’s Front” Alla Vertinskaya. However, Kuryanov has not yet received the coveted transfer from “acting” to “full-fledged rector” from his curators.
Separately, we should dwell on the use of “CFU” by the occupiers as a hub for the annual federal program “Service Learning”, “improved” by the Kremlin decree of 2024 No. 309. “CFU” was attracted to this program in 2023, after which “Service Learning” was introduced in the “university” in the “list of compulsory disciplines”.
The role of “CFU” here is quite prosaic, since the “non-profit public organizations” themselves, whose “talking heads” do not disappear from the flow of militaristic propaganda, so they “do not have enough time and resources to create websites and groups on social networks.” For example, such a proxy of the aggressor as “The Wife and Mother of the Hero. Crimea” “posted two “social orders” on one of the online platforms “Websites and Social Networks for NGOs”, which became a “priority” for students of “CFU”, who are lured “to take part in the creation and design of the site”. Another “social order” “IT for Ours” was posted by such a proxy as “National Institute of Eurasian Integration”, with the purpose of propaganda among the youth of the newly occupied territories, under the guise of “education in the field of IT”, with a reach of 200 people.
Thus, the aggressor state is making a serious bet on occupied Crimea, considering its youth as a significant “volunteer” resource, including as propagandists. For example, they are attracted in this role to the next project “Rosmolodezh.Grants”, aimed at promoting the “Everything for Victory” foundation among “students of educational institutions” of the occupied peninsula, under the auspices of the same “People’s Front” movement, as well as the online project “Cyber-Squad”, including “assembling teams of volunteers”, recruiting “ambassadors” and “new collection points for humanitarian aid to the front”.
The allocated funds are laundered through “grants” issued to “CFU students”, such as “third-year student” Ekaterina Alexa and “coordinator of the youth wing” of the “People’s Front” Alexander Kardanov. At the same time, the occupiers chose the “forum” “Youthful South” held in the captured territory of the Zaporizhzhya region as the place for distributing the “grants”. The so-called “competition” “Energy of Student Self-Government”, implemented at “CFU” within the framework of the “strategic academic leadership program” “Priority-2030”, was also marked by its militaristic orientation. In the nomination “Civil Initiative”, first place was given to the “law faculty team project” aimed at supporting Russian aggression.
The sports grounds of “CFU” are also used by the occupiers to “support” military operations, including “charity mini-football matches”, where not only “teams of students” are driven, but also similar groups of “deputies”, “representatives of various organizations, state and private institutions, unitary enterprises” of the occupied Crimea. This “tournament”, which started in May 2024 under the name “Unity Cup”, is held for the purpose of propaganda and collecting money for the Russian army.
“The guys play football, thus each of the participants contributes his part in support” of military operations, – says “assistant to the rector of CFU for physical education and sports” Zeni Alimov. In September of this year, a propaganda “press conference” was held at “CFU” entitled “Studying Journalism through the History of War Correspondents,” where “students were shown a series of video lectures on Russian military journalism,” including the activities of the aggressor’s current war correspondents at the front.
It is not surprising that “teachers of the Institute of Media Communications, Media Technologies and Design of CFU” subsequently received a “state prize” from the “Crimean authorities” for “preparing a course of video lectures” for this event.
“CFU” was also used as a base for holding the “II Crimean Media Forum” entitled “Journalism during a special military operation,” where “Director of the Institute of Media Communications, Media Technologies and Design of CFU” Alexander Mashchenko presented a “photo exhibition” of war correspondent from “RIA Novosti Crimea” Dmitry Makeev.
The fact that these photographs will become the most important evidence of war crimes committed by Russian servicemen and will forever remain in the materials of international courts is clearly not a topic for reflection for the “CFU leadership”. This “media forum”, where up to a hundred students of “specialized training” and “representatives of the largest media” of the occupiers were herded together, became a platform for self-promotion of both mainland collaborators and Vladimir Konstantinov.
Another propaganda event, a “press conference” “Names that must not be forgotten. Who are they – the heroes of our time?”, “CFU” held in November together with the “Crimean Metropolitanate” of the occupiers, predictably glorifying the soldiers and officers of the aggressor. Therefore, the “head of the press service department of the metropolitanate” Archpriest Vladimir Kashlyuk also made an appearance at this show. Earlier we reported on a “memorandum” signed between “CFU” and “Taurika Theological Seminary” on similar issues.
“CFU” also participates in attempts to glorify individual participants in Russian aggression. This year, “a memorial plaque was installed in the “Pribrezhnensky Agrarian College of CFU” in honor of a graduate” killed at the front, Vladimir Tsygonii, opening a “memorial exhibition” and a “stand of the museum of military glory” dedicated to the war crimes of the Crimean “cannon fodder” in the Kherson region. Also, “CFU management”, taking into account the accumulation of a mass of funeral notices for former students, promised to create a separate “alley of glory for participants of the SVO” at the “university”.
Recently, “CFU” hosted a presentation of the so-called “collective scientific and educational book” “Field Notebook of the SVO”. “The author of the idea and the head of the implementation” of this “book of death” was declared to be “the head of the philosophy department of the Taurida Academy of CFU” Oleg Shevchenko.
At the presentation, it was not hidden that this apologetics of aggression and genocide of the Ukrainian people “is aimed at front-line political officers and military personnel”, as well as at collaborators of the newly occupied territories. The so-called “commander of the Wagner assault unit” Artem Chumarov promised to be the reviewer of the “notebook”. However, given that the life cycle of a former “Wagnerite” is much shorter than that of a cicada, the “notebook” may not live to see a review.
Chumakov is not the only one who goes to propaganda shows at “CFU branches”. In September of this year, such a propaganda “conversation” was held with “students of the E.A. Vernovsky” and servicemen of the 56th Guards Separate Airborne Assault Regiment of the aggressor, engaged not only in “push-up competitions”, but also in direct recruitment of new “cannon fodder”.
And if for the “lyricists” in “CFU” they are preparing the shoulder straps of propagandists, and for the students of “colleges and technical schools” the roles of landing stormtroopers, then for the “physicists” the aggressor has prepared a “project” “Point “Knowledge” from the Russian society of the same name. At the event, “officially opened” in “CFU” in October of this year, the “role of the professions of the physics and mathematics profile in the context of military actions” of the aggressor was discussed.
As you can see, all possible areas of activity of “CFU” are focused on providing assistance and ideological promotion of Russian aggression. So it would be surprising if the “scientific potential of the university” was not also actively used by the occupiers for these criminal tasks.
The aggressor’s foreign intelligence does not shy away from the “CFU” platform, having held there on September 26 a certain “international round table” “Problems of interaction of the states of the Black Sea region in the context of conducting its own” for the “intellectual development of issues.” Since there were no “talking heads” from third countries, the target audience of the event was obviously foreign students of “CFU”, from whom future “analysts”, spies, saboteurs, and other “friends of Crimea” will be recruited.
The above allows us to admit that “CFU” is an instrument of propaganda and ideological support for Russian aggression against Ukraine and the entire civilized world. In the “university”, the occupiers are systematically carrying out institutionalized militarization of the educational process. The management of “CFU” uses students and teachers to collect “humanitarian aid”, participate in propaganda events and support the ideological course of the Kremlin.
All the described “forums”, “fairs”, “press conferences”, “football matches” and “grant projects” clearly demonstrate the integration of elements of militarism into the “academic” life of the peninsula. And “CFU” itself, despite the presence in the region of such “competitors” as “Sevastopol State University” and “Crimean Industrial and Pedagogical University”, is trying to break through to the role of “key player” in the imperial propaganda machine of the occupiers, aimed at mobilizing young people in support of the aggressive policy of Russia, which brings death, destruction and total violation of international law.
