Dear colleagues, friends, and partners!

Today, we celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day. And, today, this holiday has a special meaning and status for all of us. It has always been and will be dear to everyone who loves the Motherland and feels responsible for its fate.

On February 23, we pay tribute to those who guard the security of the country, protect its interests, traditions, and legacy of our ancestors.

As President Vladimir Putin noted in his Address to the Federal Assembly, ‘today, we are facing difficulties together’, ‘a period of dramatic irreversible changes around the world’, and ‘the most important historical events that determine the future of our country and our people’. The word “together” is the key word in this Address.

Only together we will be able to support our people who are now on the front line. Employees, students of Saratov State University, activists of the Headquarters of Student Brigades and the Council of Undergraduates and Postgraduates, being volunteers of the We Are Together movement, support our mobilised countrymen, collecting humanitarian aid for them and their families. Only together we can teach, educate, and invent, promoting our university and developing science.

Patriotism today acquires new meanings and includes different borderlines. The transformation of the higher education system in Russia is beginning. You and I – teaching and university staff, mentors, scientists – have a special mission. This mission is to bring education to a new stage of development, to make it the basis of the country prosperity and the key to breakthrough results.

I heartily congratulate all those party to Defender of the Fatherland Day. Be safe and sound!

Rector of Saratov State University

Aleksei Chumachenko