Russian University Drops US Lecturer Targeted by State Television

Moscow: A Russian university has sacked an American lecturer as head of an innovations centre after state television accused him of undermining the country's interests, he told AFP on Wednesday.

Venture capitalist Kendrick White said that Lobachevsky State University in the industrial city of Nizhny Novgorod has sacked him as head of a centre he founded two years ago to support startups and innovations.

White came under attack last month on an influential state television news show hosted by a leading Kremlin propagandist, Dmitry Kiselyov.

The show claimed that during White's stint at the university, portraits of Russian scientists that once hung in its halls had been taken down and replaced with those of US scholars.

"Unfortunately, it [the firing] now does appear to be official from the records the human resources department has shown me," White told AFP in a telephone interview.

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The university earlier dismissed White from a more senior post of vice-rector soon after the show aired.

White, who has lived in Russia since 1992, said the university told him his latest demotion was due to restructuring.

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"I don't think I will personally ever learn why this has happened," he said.

White, who also heads an investment consultancy, said he expects to meet the rector next month to discuss his future at the university, where he is still officially retained as an associate professor.

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"Maybe he will invite me on to do something else, but I highly doubt that. I think this situation is much bigger than Lobachevsky University, it is much bigger than Nizhny Novgorod," he said.

White's demotion comes amid a broader crackdown on foreigners and foreign organisations deemed threats to national security, as Russia remains locked in a standoff with the West over the Ukraine crisis.

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In recent months, a handful of Western academics, journalists and human rights advocates have been fined or expelled from the country for alleged visa violations.

In May, President Vladimir Putin approved legislation that bans the activities of foreign nongovernmental organisations viewed as national security threats. The law also makes it a criminal offence for Russian activists to cooperate with these organisations.