Lithuania to cancel free university education for Ukrainian refugees

Source: Vitaliy Chervonenko

Lithuania is pulling the plug on free university education for Ukrainian refugees, a move reportedly made at the “request of the Ukrainian government”. The news came from the Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Chervonenko.

He assumes the “rationale” behind this shift is that Ukrainian students should “return home to study”, even though “power outages last for 15 hours and missiles are hitting children’s hospitals.”

“Who in Kyiv got this  smart idea? Everyone is denying their role, while the Ministry of Education and Science insists they didn’t request it,” Chervonenko bitterly remarked.

The decision can spark a concern as it is still unclear if universities will be able to keep their classrooms warm and safe in winter.

In my previous column, I wrote about social innovations in Ukraine. Those innovations are part of civic resilience and the democratization of security, which Europe is paying close attention to right now. The EU is trying to work out how to spread responsibility for its own security across society as a whole, rather than leaving it to institutions alone. It is looking for concrete ways to bring ordinary people into the work of defense and resistance.

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Internationally recognized brands and financial institutions should direct capital to Ukraine now, not waiting for the hostilities to end. This was emphasized by Rinat Akhmetov, president of FC Shakhtar, during a working visit to UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, where he met with UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin.

In recent days, Moscow’s official rhetoric has been dominated by hysteria over the decision of…

In 2025, the deadliest year yet for civilians, Ukraine’s three largest charitable foundations raised a record 105.9 billion hryvnias. It is more than the years 2022–2024 combined. According to the UN, humanitarian aid in Ukraine was delivered by more than 450 organisations, reaching five million people over the course of the year. Civic foundations hold licences to purchase lethal weapons, which is a function states have monopolised for centuries. These record sums were underwritten by international government grants, which means foreign states now channel billions directly through Ukrainian civic funds, bypassing inter-state channels. It is hard to imagine a stronger institutional trust in civil society.