The teacher of propaganda at Moscow State University complained about the “salary lower than that of a cleaner”

In a letter to the rector, the teacher of the master’s program of Moscow State University “Information and Hybrid Wars” complained about the salary “below a cleaning lady.” He stated that his salary is “humiliating” and “insulting” for a specialist in the field of “special informational psychological operations”. The text was published by the Russian military blogger Boris Rozhyn.

The program at Moscow State University was opened after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the Faculty of Political Science. The university announced that they will train specialists capable of developing, planning and implementing operations to “counteract information, hybrid warfare and color revolutions”. The head of the program was appointed political scientist Andrey Manoilo, declared the founder of the site for exposing fake news with less than a thousand visitors per month.

Associate professor Anatoly Petrenko complained about teachers’ salaries. His biographies say that he served in the special services for 33 years, taught at the FSB academy, and now “passes on his experience and knowledge to the younger generation.” At Moscow State University, he reads, in particular, lectures “on the development of special propaganda.”

In the appeal, he writes that when he joined the faculty, he was not interested in his future salary and found it out six months later from his bank statement. According to the text, he earned from 3,300 to 4,700 rubles per month at a quarter rate. “Especially this causes misunderstanding, since the cleaner’s rate at the faculty is higher,” he wrote.

In an interview with channel 360, Petrenko stated that he did not have time to send the letter, but it “somehow” appeared in Telegram channels. According to him, some of his colleagues earned even less than him. The press service of Moscow State University did not comment on the request.