Is it true that Zelensky failed the entrance exam to MGIMO in 1995?

In 2025, Russian-language media and Telegram channels reported that 30 years ago, the future president of Ukraine became one of the worst applicants to a prestigious Moscow university. An allegedly recently found examination paper was cited as evidence. We have verified the authenticity of this information.

From the statement, which is actively distributed on the Runet, it follows that in 1995, Vladimir Zelensky tried to enter the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), but according to the test results he scored only 37 points (allegedly out of 150 possible) and took fourth place from the bottom in the list of 48 applicants.

Reports about Zelensky's alleged failure in the exam spread in several stages. So, at the end of January 2025, TV presenter and MGIMO professor Yuri Vyazemsky stated: “MGIMO did the right thing by not taking him. The only thing we were missing was Zelensky. We had a medical board working at that time - it had to understand that he was schizophrenic.” Then about this news reported TV channel "Star". In May, about the allegedly discovered statement told Ukrainian pro-Russian blogger Diana Panchenko (her video on YouTube at the time of writing this analysis received 519,000 views). The message was actively distributed on Telegram - in particular, relevant posts were published in the channels “Sheikh Tamir"(124,000 views), "Ostashko! Important"(114,000), "Cat Kostyan"(77,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram» (57,000), etc.

According to official biography Vladimir Zelensky, in 1995–2000 he studied to become a lawyer at the Kiev National Economic University (KNEU). In a 2008 interview he clarified, that he studied at a branch of this university in his native Krivoy Rog, and also admitted that he used to dream of becoming a diplomat. Zelensky explained the change in his preferences as follows: “At the time when I was finishing school, KIMO (Kiev Institute of International Relations - Ed.) had just appeared, so I wanted to enter MGIMO. But when I found out about the conditions for admission, how much someone needs to pay, I realized: becoming an international student is an impossible task for me. By the time I graduated from school, I was 17 and a half years old. If I had not entered the university, I would have been drafted into the army. But people like me, hot-tempered, etc., can’t go there. That's why I didn't take any risks. Knowing English well (I studied in a class with in-depth study of the English language) and the theory of state and law, I entered the law department at the Krivoy Rog branch of KSU named after. T. G. Shevchenko." Here, apparently, Zelensky or the journalist mixed up the name of the university.

In an interview with Dmitry Gordon in 2018, Zelensky confirmedthat he wanted to become a diplomat and was thinking about entering MGIMO. He clarified that the “very serious” parents of his classmate told him about the unpleasant condition of enrolling in a university (“the issue needs to be resolved there”). After this, the future Ukrainian president decided to enter the local institute, where his father taught at the computer science department.

From Zelensky’s words it follows that the choice in favor of the Krivoy Rog branch of KNEU was made while still at school. About this in the biography of the politician writes Dmitry Bykov, referring to the words of his mathematics teacher Elena Bogacheva. She told the writer that Zelensky convinced her, after practice, to go to work at a local university, where he himself was going to enroll.

Let us now consider the exam sheet, which was actively distributed by the media and Telegram channels.

There are quite a few questions about this document. For example, the structural and legal form of the federal state autonomous educational institution of higher education MGIMO received only in 2015.

The examination sheet contains details such as the start and end times of the exam, as well as the name of the examiner, but does not indicate the name of the subject in which the applicants' knowledge was tested. Also in this fragment of the document there is a spelling error - “form of conductinge exam."

The examiner's name does not match the signature. The testing was carried out by a certain K.N. Nikitin, but “Turbine” is clearly visible in the autograph. At MGIMO, indeed, There is a professor with this last name who worked at the university in 1995, but she specialized in economics and insurance law, so she could hardly take the exam from future diplomats.

There is an incredibly large gap (even taking into account the time for checking) between the date of the exam at the top of the sheet and the date of drawing up the statement at the bottom: July 28 and August 15. But what is more important is that while the top date is clearly printed in Courier (or Courier New) font, the bottom font is very reminiscent of Calibri, presented to the public only in 2006, 11 years after the supposed exam took place.

Finally, one of the most important inconsistencies in this report is the grading scale. “Verified” interviewed five people who entered MGIMO in 1993–2000. Four of them (including an applicant from 1995) said that each of the four entrance exams was assessed on a five-point scale, another one (an applicant from 1997) - on a 25-point scale (20 points for the test, 5 points for an oral answer). That is, the applicant could not score 150 points, as indicated in the news, especially in one exam.

Thus, the document has numerous signs of falsification. Zelensky himself said that he changed his mind about entering MGIMO even before passing the exams, this is confirmed by other sources.

The first photo of the statement was published by the Telegram channel “Shaman Rahu» January 27 at 13:13 Moscow time. This channel repeatedly was caught by “Verified” in disseminating false information about Ukraine and often became its primary source.

Cover photo: Instagram

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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