Vladimir Medinsky

In 2019, Medinsky called the Chernobyl series “Masterfully made” and “filmed with great respect for ordinary people”. Medinsky's father was one of the Chernobyl liquidators.

On 3 October 2017 the top Russian academic council recommended revoking Medinsky's 2011 doctorate. However, on 20 October 2017 a committee of a government agency that oversees the awarding of higher academic degrees ruled in the minister's favour by 16 to 6.

In 2015, Medinsky called for the creation of a Russian "patriotic Internet" to combat Western ideas, adding that those who are against Russia are against the truth.

On 23 May 2014, the Dissernet community, an informal group of academics and journalists concerned with dissertation plagiarism, declared to have found plagiarism in two previous dissertations by Medinsky, of 1997 and 1999. According to Dissernet's expertise, in the first thesis 87 pages out of 120 have been borrowed from the thesis of Medinsky's scientific advisor S. A. Proskurin. In the second thesis, 21 pages textually coincide with other people's works.

In 2013, Medinsky's Culture Ministry proposed an updated cultural policy blueprint. Calling for "a rejection of the principles of tolerance and multiculturalism", it emphasizes Russian "traditional values" and cautions against "pseudo-art" that may be at variance with those values.

The third thesis of 2011 has been widely debated in the Russian media and a large number of fragments have been shown to bear a significant resemblance to existing academic works, which caused numerous accusations of plagiarism.

Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky (Russian: Владимир Ростиславович Мединский , Ukrainian: Володимир Ростиславович Мединський ; born July 18, 1970) is a Russian political figure, academic and publicist who served as the Minister of Culture from May 2012 to January 2020. He is a member of the General Council of the United Russia party.