Leading Moscow and regional schools in the Russian Federation have strived for many years to operate according to global standards set by the Swiss organization International Baccalaureate (IB). Ten years ago, there were 27 state schools in the capital alone, plus a couple dozen private ones, authorized by IB. By 2025, their number had decreased by nearly two-thirds, and in the regions, almost none remain. Putin’s elite — governors, officials, oil executives — were eager to enroll their children in schools with IB programs. Finally, in 2025, the private school Letovo topped the ranking of the world’s best IB schools. But just a week before the start of the school year, the General Prosecutor’s Office declared the International Baccalaureate system “undesirable” in Russia. Teachers and administrators contacted by T-invariant either decline to comment or used language unsuitable for publication.
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Exactly one week before the start of the school year, The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office designated the International Baccalaureate (IB) organization as “undesirable.” This is a major setback for Russia’s top private and public schools. Schools offering the third level of IB — the Diploma Programme (DP) — are highly regarded, and many families seek to enroll their children in them, as high school students who complete the DP can expect admission to the world’s top universities.
Teachers and school administrators have already returned from summer vacations, so the news is being hotly debated in numerous school chats. “In the teachers’ chats, everyone’s been f***ing shocked all morning,” is how one source described the community’s reaction to T-invariant; this individual has worked in several IB schools in Russia and abroad. Perhaps the hardest hit was the renowned Letovo School. Based on the 2024–2025 academic year results, it was recognized as the best IB school in the world by average IB score, surpassing the oldest private schools and boarding institutions. T-invariant reached out to Letovo for an official comment, but they are declining to comment for now: “Thank you for your interest in the school. At this time, the school is not commenting on the latest news; all communications, as needed, will appear on the school’s official channels.”
At another Moscow school with IB, they also declined to comment: “It’s really shaky and unsafe for us to talk about IB right now.”
For a student who has been selected into the IB system, parents pay (in the case of some private schools, like Letovo, the cost can be fully or partially covered by a scholarship from the school). “In Moscow state schools, a year of study starts at 500,000 rubles (about $5,400), and in private ones — at 1.5-2 million rubles ($16,000–$22,000). One of the record holders for the annual IB/DP tuition fee is the British International School (33,900 euros, about $37,700). The question now is: who will compensate the families? It is a critical moment for families of students in the two-year DP stage. Parents have already paid for the first year and most likely made a deposit for the second one,” explains a T-invariant source who previously led IB programs at several schools.
In total, in Russia, according to the official website, 29 schools are authorized to offer IB programs. The undisputed leader in the number of such schools is Moscow and the Moscow region. Schools also exist in St. Petersburg, Kaluga, Kazan, Alabuga (a special economic zone in Tatarstan), and Vladivostok.
The prestigious L.I. Milgram School No. 45 was the first to receive IB authorization in 1996. It was there that the vast majority of teachers who later became directors of leading private IB schools or oversaw the respective programs began working under this system: Letovo, Khoroschool, the E.M. Primakov Moscow Region Gymnasium, and others.
“The ideologues of anti-Russian projects have ‘appointed’ the organization as the leader of international general education programs, allowing graduates to enter virtually any university in the world. Applicants are offered about 5,000 universities located in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, and several other European countries. In reality, the goal of the Swiss NGO is to shape Russian youth according to Western templates. The essence of the education boils down to imposing their vision of historical processes, distorting well-known facts, anti-Russian propaganda, and stirring up ethnic hatred,” states the General Prosecutor’s Office website.
The security agencies’ concerns didn’t arise out of nowhere. In the most prestigious private IB schools, according to T-invariant data, children of the Moscow Region Governor, many of his deputies, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, and other senior Russian officials have studied and are studying there now. In IB schools during the 1990s and early 2000s, the children of former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, former Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Khloponin, and many other members of Putin’s elite were educated.
“It’s important to understand that not everyone is accepted into the Diploma Programme level; they select based on knowledge level. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (referred to as the “special military operation” in Russian official terminology), the number of IB students dropped by roughly half,” a teacher from one of the elite private schools told T-invariant.
However, according to the General Prosecutor’s Office, the situation deteriorated further after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “With the start of the special military operation, the teaching and methodological manuals were adjusted to take into account the Russophobic position of the collective West. They began to contain calls for the international isolation of our country and materials discrediting the Russian army. Representatives of the baccalaureate promote non-traditional values based on the ideology of banned extremist associations,” the prosecutors conclude in their press release.
Serious problems for IB schools began immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Baccalaureate organization (IB) initially limited its activities in Russia, suspending the issuance of permissions to new schools. However, unlike many other international educational institutions, IB continued its operations, allowing existing schools to work under its program. This decision faced criticism as contradicting international sanctions and the ethical positions of other organizations.
According to T-invariant data, at the start of the war, there were 46 IB schools. At least six such schools closed in Moscow and the region over three years — primarily due to license revocations and the inability to make payments because of sanctions. All schools in the Urals and Siberia shut down.
Nevertheless, the trend toward open education ended even before the SVO. For instance, in Moscow, there were 27 state IB schools in 2015 alone. In the regions, the situation was even more dramatic. In 2018, the Perm administration effectively prevented three schools in the city from renewing their IB authorization. Ten years earlier, the then “progressive governor” of the region, Oleg Chirkunov, had launched this opportunity for Perm families with great fanfare.
Declaring the International Baccalaureate organization “undesirable” in the Russian Federation will only accelerate the brain drain and increase the number of emigrants from Moscow and St. Petersburg. “Colleagues in Yerevan or Montenegrin schools are now quietly bracing for a new exodus of families with children,” says one expatriate teacher to T-invariant, with extensive experience in the IB system.