Kremlin’s ‘Presidential Academy’ Gets Hit With a Mass Purge

A prestigious Kremlin-funded university that trains up Russia's top civil servants is about to fire all of its employees living abroad, according to current and former employees, in what appears to be Moscow’s latest wartime attempt to secure a vice-like grip around possible dissent.

The Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of Russia (RANEPA) is targeting employees who left during Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, in addition to those who have been living elsewhere for longer, according to a report from Agentsvo, or The Agency. Sources told the outlet that “the order came from above,” without specifying further.

The firing spree follows a series of crackdowns on liberal elements of the university. Yulia Galyamina, a former professor in the Department of the Theory and Practice of Media Communications at RANEPA, was fired in recent months after she called for protests against the war last year. Russia alleged she was a foreign agent. The school’s former rector, economist Vladimir Mau, left the university after being accused of embezzlement and being interrogated for several days.

Read more at The Daily Beast.