Russian Justice Ministry declares Berkeley ‘undesirable organisation’

Russia’s Justice Ministry has added the University of California, Berkeley and the Russian-American Science Association (RASA) to its list of “undesirable organisations”, effectively banning their activities in the country.

According to the Justice Ministry’s website, the Prosecutor General’s Office approved both organisations’ designations as “undesirable” in February, but they were only made public on Tuesday.

While the Prosecutor General’s Office normally issues statements explaining the reasons behind “undesirable” designations, it did not do so on Tuesday, and the Justice Ministry offered no further details.

Any organisation deemed “undesirable” by the Russian government is legally obliged to dissolve itself, and any involvement in its activities — including sharing its content online — becomes illegal.

Founded in 1868, Berkeley consistently ranks among the top universities in both the US and globally and counts over 60 Nobel laureates among its alumni.

It is the fifth US higher education institution to be blacklisted by the Russian authorities, following Bard College in 2021 and Brigham Young University, Yale University and George Washington University last year.

RASA is a network of Russian-speaking scholars established in the US in 2010, and describes its mission as the development of a “common intellectual and cultural space” for its members.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it launched the Networking and Mentoring Mechanism for Scholars in Need, a project that supports academics forced to flee Ukraine due to the war or who faced persecution in Russia.