University of Luhansk
Ukraine · Europe
About
Luhansk University is a higher education institution located in the Donbas region of Ukraine. Founded in the Ukrainian SSR in 1921, it is the oldest university in the region. Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, the institution has de facto operated as two competing entities:
The Ukraine-aligned Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University (Ukrainian: Луганський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка), which maintains campuses in Poltava, Myrhorod, and Lubny.
The Russian Federation-aligned Luhansk State Pedagogical University (Russian: Луганский государственный педагогический университет), which remains based at the original campus in Luhansk.
Following the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine and the establishment of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), armed pro-Russian forces seized control of the city of Luhansk and the university's primary campus. A significant portion of the student body, faculty, and administration evacuated to Ukrainian-controlled territory, re-establishing the university in Starobilsk. The original campus in Luhansk continued operating under local occupation authorities and was renamed Luhansk State Pedagogical University in 2020. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukraine-aligned university relocated further west from Starobilsk to its current locations in Poltava, Myrhorod, and Lubny.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.