I was reading a CBC News article last week about comments that Russian President Vladimir Putin made regarding former Canadian Speaker of the House Anthony Rota’s resignation. Rota had invited a former Nazi Ukrainian soldier to be honoured in Parliament.

This was when I came across a familiar name in a rather unfamiliar geographical location: University of Manitoba professor Radhika Desai in Russia.

I am an alumnus of the department of political studies and I am a former student of Prof. Desai. I cannot say that I aligned with all of her positions at the time, but after finding out that she had spent part of last week shilling for warmongerer Putin, I found her actions to be particularly disgusting.

According to Aurora Student, most Thursdays professor Desai has scheduled classes. Last Thursday as of the time of publication, Desai was halfway across the world in Sochi, Russia attending the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

A discussion club may seem like a noble endeavour in a free and democratic society. However, in Putin’s Russia, public discourse is manipulated, and dissenters are repressed and punished. I would be shocked if this Valdai forum was anything more than premeditated theatre for Putin to stroke his own ego.

While in Sochi, Desai had the rare opportunity to ask Putin a question directly. Did she plead for him to stop his awful war? Did she demand answers for his many war crimes? Sadly, no.

Desai opened her comments by thanking Putin for his talk at the forum, calling it “well informed” and “historically very instructive and thought provoking.” She next referred to the Canadian Parliament as “a laughingstock of the world” due to former Speaker Rota’s public gaffe.

Desai then baselessly claimed that Western democratic leadership is entrenched in “ignorant, hubristic notions.” She ended by lobbing a softball question to Putin, asking him what his thoughts on the Speaker Rota scandal were.

The olive branch that Desai extended gave Putin the opportunity to denigrate his Western opponents, claiming that Rota was either an “idiot” or a “bastard.” He then went on to repeat one of the most egregious lies of the Russia-Ukraine War, namely that the purpose of Russia’s illegal invasion was the “de-Nazification” of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.

Putin’s remarks were prepared and questions from the audience had been submitted prior to the talk. The entire act was calculated and was political theatre from the start.

Let me put it another way: Desai had the opportunity to publicly hold the war criminal Putin accountable for his actions. Instead, she chose to lick his boots and assist him in stroking his ego.

This act is repulsive and morally reprehensible.

Desai has shown no public remorse since. In a subsequent interview with the CBC, she said that Canadians have “convinced ourselves that basically everything Russian is bad.” That claim is a stretch at best. More accurately, basically everything today that results from Putin’s dictatorial rule is bad.

Putin led Russia into a war with Ukraine. That is bad. Hundreds of thousands have died. That is bad. Russian missiles struck a Ukrainian grocery store and killed more than 51 civilians on literally the same day that Desai was acting as Putin’s lackey. Professor Desai should not need it spelled out to her that these are terrible atrocities.

Desai claimed in that same CBC interview that her actions were motivated by “anti-Russian propaganda [that] has been wall to wall in countries like Canada,” and that the current war was provoked by the West. These disparages should be called out for what they really are: gutless parroting of popular false narratives propagated by government-controlled Russian state media. If Desai has any sort of examples of anti-Russian propaganda that allegedly pervade Canada right now, she must prove her claim.

To be clear, Putin is a liar, a warmonger, and a barbaric aggressor. Putin does not deserve our sympathies. He does not deserve a public platform in which to perpetuate his lies. Desai claimed to have attended this forum in order to “have dialogue with the other side.” There was a time in which this excuse may have been defensible, but due to Putin’s long list of cruel and genocidal actions, we are long past that point.

Further, Putin certainly does not deserve to have an academic travel from Canada to Russia in order to act as his stooge. There is nothing redeeming in Desai’s sick attempts to help paint Putin and his warmongering regime in a flattering light.

Rather, she is morally bankrupt.

Presumably, last Thursday Desai had a class to teach. Instead of teaching in person, she perplexingly travelled thousands of kilometres in order to make indefensible comments and lob softball questions to perhaps the most evil man in the world today. Desai should have stayed in class.

I believe that students of the University of Manitoba should expect more from their faculty. This is not a matter that students should shrug off. Everyone should expect better than this.

There is a vital importance to academic freedom. It is one of the pillars of institutions of higher learning. But there is also accountability to be had with freedom, and this should be considered well beyond the limits. If Desai has any moral backbone, she should resign from her position immediately for engaging in such a reprehensible act.