Degradation After Lukashenka's Performance

Three news items that would have made you grab your head in the recent past.

The beginning of 2025 highlighted the unenviable state of the country's still leading university.

Let's list three news items that would have made us grab our heads in the recent past.

In the updated authoritative Webometrics (The Ranking Web) rating, BSU has slipped to 1202nd position, although in 2020 it was 763rd. The rating, published by the Spanish Cybermetrics Lab and including 32 thousand educational institutions in the world, is based on a combined indicator that takes into account both the volume of web content and the visible influence of these publications by the number of external citations.

And in the updated SCImago Institutions Ranking, BSU fell to 6271 positions, although a year ago it was at 5003. The rating from the Spanish group SCImago includes 10 thousand scientific institutions of the world.

At the same time, the priorities of BSU at this stage were quite eloquently demonstrated by the “dialogue platform” on March 31, where the “merchant of death” Viktor Bout, who was imprisoned in the USA and is now a “Russian public figure”, spoke to the staff and students of the university.

This degradation might not have happened if not for the close attention to BSU from the country's leadership, caused by the peaceful protests of 2020, when many students and teachers of the university condemned violence and lawlessness.

In the fall of that year, Lukashenka did not risk coming to BSU to talk, but sent Natallia Kachanava to talk to the students. She was unable to answer the pressing questions and comments on the merits, noting: “Why are you so young and so aggressive?”

Soon, mass expulsions of students and dismissals of teachers began. Even when the count reached hundreds of people, the country's leadership was not satisfied with this pace. In August 2023, Lukashenka came to BSU to stage a performance behind which dark intentions were hidden.

At first, the ruler raised the issue of the rector Andrei Karol’s resignation, but then he himself offered to give him another chance. The meaning of the performance boiled down to a demand to further intensify repression at BSU. It is no coincidence that Lukashenka noted: “I remember 2020, where you showed yourself “brilliantly”.

The new person at the head of BSU could be ashamed to tighten the screws excessively to the detriment of education and science, but Karoll did not — perhaps because of the weighty dirt collected on him (the Cyber ​​Partisans learned, among other things, about the rector's mistresses).

At the moment, the purges at BSU are being supervised by the Vice-Rector for Security and Personnel Yaraslau Charkaski, sent from the KGB. Reports go to the very top, including the Chairperson of the Council of the Republic Natallia Kachanava.

Having gotten rid of those who openly supported the peaceful protest, now they are firing those who are simply disloyal to the regime or who did not actively enough carry out purges among their subordinates after their contracts expire. Perhaps for the latter reason, Vadzim Dziamidchyk, a world-famous scientist, left the post of Dean of the Biology Department last year.

And this is just one of the facts that became known due to the reshuffles in high positions. Teachers and scientists prefer to resign quietly, so as not to worsen the situation for themselves or their loved ones.

In such a situation, the fall of BSU in world rankings is a natural process that will only intensify due to the regime's desire to take revenge on dissenters and expand the ideological indoctrination of students.

Mark Dzyuba, Solidarity

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