The Association of Lebanese Students' Parents Abroad announced that "for years we have been urging the Russian government to fulfill its national duties regarding a corruption case of great importance taking place on its territory and within its educational institutions, but to no avail. This concerns the sale of educational grants offered by the Russian state as gifts to Lebanese students, the cost of which is deducted from the Russian people's funds, stemming from a recognition of the difficult financial conditions in Lebanon, and encouragement for outstanding students to continue their studies. These grants have become captive to brokers, who have made millions of dollars from their sale, with the price of a single grant reaching $20,000, and the victims of this corruption are the Russian and Lebanese peoples, reducing these grants to mere marketing tools that have lost their meaning."
The statement further indicated that "the chaos has been exacerbated by the lack of investigations and the indifference of the Russian side, allowing brokers to expand their operations into some public universities in Russia, most notably in Penza and Oryol, where a commercial agreement was reached between the brokers and the university president, producing a general mandate that permits them to manage the financial and administrative affairs concerning the students. This has enabled them to exploit freely without accountability, imposing personal laws that suit their interests. The latest scandal, unseen in the educational world, involved forcing students to repeat a year under flimsy and illogical pretexts, but the real reason was the significant decline in student enrollment at the university. To maintain continuous financial sources and avoid a void, they invented the idea of delaying students by a year to gain additional income, thereby leaving students vulnerable to their desires, even going so far as to invest in restaurants within university campuses and dubious clubs to attract students and siphon off more of their money."
The association called upon the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati "to address the danger threatening hundreds of students in Russia, urging him to summon the Russian Ambassador Alexander Rudakov and the Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib to discuss the situation on Russian soil and clarify the issues at hand, because the actions being practiced by brokers are highly dangerous and threaten the future of hundreds of Lebanese students who are being treated outside the laws of the Russian state. The association will not leave any legal avenue unexplored until justice is served and those involved are held accountable wherever their corruption has spread."
