Yevhen Bondarenko, Head of the Information Support Department of the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, took part in the press conference “Ukraine is waiting: simplified university admissions for applicants from the temporarily occupied and frontline territories”, held at the Media Center Ukraine — Ukrinform. The main purpose of the discussion was to highlight the start of the admission campaign for young people from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

During his speech, Yevhen Bondarenko emphasized the importance of working to facilitate admission to Ukrainian higher education institutions from the temporarily occupied territories, where young people who have become hostages of Russia’s occupation information policy will be able to reintegrate into the Ukrainian context. 

He also described the methods of the Russian Federation, which were implemented to colonize the peninsula and militarize the children and youth of Crimea. Russia, as the occupying state, promotes the assimilation of Russian youth, who are brought to the peninsula by all means to replace its population intentionally. In addition, since 2014, the Russian occupiers have been doing everything possible to reduce the number of applicants to Ukrainian universities by providing them with benefits and encouragement to enter the territory of the Russian Federation.

In addition to the Mission participation, the press conference was attended by: Yevhen Mazniev, Executive Secretary of the Admissions Committee of Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University; Viktor Kuts, Coordinator of the “Crimea-Ukraine” Educational Center of the Admissions Committee of the V.I. Vernadsky Taurida National University;Valentyna Potapova, Head of the Direction of National Advocacy at the Centre of Civil Education “Almenda”; Violeta Artemchuk, Chief Coordinating Director of the NGO “Donbas SOS”.