Over the past four years, it has become impossible to speak about Russian foreign policy without confronting Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine. By utilizing drones and artillery capabilities, Russia continues to ravage Ukraine and its citizens. Thus, UC Berkeley should see the recent decision by the Russian government to blacklist UC Berkeley as a badge of honor.
The decision to blacklist UC Berkeley didn’t come out of nowhere. A complete consideration of this issue necessitates a broader conversation about what being a threat to Russia’s order, security or defense capabilities really means.
When The Daily Californian reported on the blacklist, it became apparent that there are members of the UC Berkeley community who still cling to an illusion of normalcy at a time when Russia is pounding Ukrainian cities with missile and drone barrages while occupying the home of more than three million people. The Daily Cal’s article also lacked nuance that reveals the Russian regime isn’t threatening anything new, and that Russian international students at UC Berkeley are at the back of a long line of people whose freedoms have been encumbered by the war.
In 2014, my parents and I fled Donetsk, in Eastern Ukraine, as Russian tanks rolled in. My elderly grandparents stayed, hoping that the occupation was temporary. In September 2022, Russia unilaterally annexed Donetsk. My grandparents were coerced into giving up their domestic Ukrainian passports and accepting Russian passports in exchange. Then they were told that they must now identify as Russian citizens.
A front line separates my grandparents from Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s malicious neglect of his own alleged citizens separates them from Russia. Their Donetsk-issued debit cards, phone numbers and passports are no longer accepted; they are trapped without running water or medical care and left with only the knowledge that Russia has left them to die.
Denying freedom of movement is not a new play for the Russian regime, nor does the Russian government need a legal ruling to arbitrarily fine and imprison its people. Finding the blacklisting of UC Berkeley “heartbreaking” or “disorienting,” as a graduate student did, implies that it is an unexpected escalation. It is not an escalation but rather the continuation of a long thread of human rights violations.
In a similar vein, the Daily Cal reported that one undergraduate worries that if he travels to Russia to visit family, he might not be able to defer his “compulsory military service” to complete his degree. However, what the paper failed to acknowledge is that said military is committing war crimes.
Further, Ukrainians in the occupied territory are subject to Russian compulsory military service. My uncle was conscripted. He was kidnapped from his workplace on the first day of the full-scale invasion, leaving him seriously wounded and his right hand without its full function. Six months later, on the Ukrainian side of the front line, his mother was killed in her home by a Russian strike.
My uncle didn’t have the option of postponing his mandatory military service. Being detained and drafted isn’t a fear for him — it’s his reality. And, most importantly, he didn’t have the luxury of ignoring the fact that the Russian military has been terrorizing Ukrainian people daily for the past four years.
There are millions of people who are unable to visit their families in occupied Ukraine. There are people whose property is being forcibly taken because they refused to give up their Ukrainian passports. The threats against Russian international students at UC Berkeley are a small taste of what Russia has been making against Ukrainian people for years.
And it is unsurprising that the Russian government would target figures associated with higher education. The Ukrainian biologist Leonid Pshenichnov was arrested in September 2025 and charged with high treason for protesting Antarctic krill fishing — an industry the Russian government values very deeply. At the time of his arrest, he was 70 years old, lived in occupied Crimea and held a Russian passport but was arrested for the threat that he posed to the objectives of the Russian government.
The past four years have made it clear that the Russian government does not balk at hurting people — children, the elderly and civilians in general. In this context, I see the blacklisting of UC Berkeley as something to take pride in. I am proud that Russia’s regime sees our institution as a problem — and, in a sense, we really are.
We hold values at odds with those of Russian authoritarianism. We are famous for a culture of individual expression, in contrast to the Russian regime’s values of conformity and obedience. Along with many other American universities, we produce scientists, engineers, politicians and entrepreneurs whose work contributes to U.S. policies and programs aimed squarely at Russia. Our coupling with private industry drives a technoindustrial economy that steamrolls Russia by any respectable metric. Our institution is the paragon of everything Russia fears of the West: technical edge and social freedom.
The blacklisting of UC Berkeley by the Russian regime is a good thing — it is proof that we are on the right side of history.