Foreign minister Prak Sokhonn and his Russian counterpart Sergy Lavrov signs an MoU to promote bilateral relations in 2022. RUSSIAN EMBASSY
The Russian government announced that it will provide Cambodian students and civil servants with 40 scholarships for 2024, up from 25 last year, according to the Russian embassy in Phnom Penh.
In a notice, the Association of Cambodian Students in the Russian Federation said the scholarships would be granted to Cambodian students who are pursuing Bachelor’s, Master’s, specialist and doctoral degrees. The scholarship offers will expire on February 20 this year.
Of the 40 scholarships, one is for the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, in arts, culture, music or film. Six scholarships are for civil nuclear and related studies while 33 others are for general subjects such as medicine, electrical engineering, aircraft engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, international relations, politics, economics, management, information technology (IT), law, environment and agriculture.
At present, there are 77 Cambodian students studying in various fields in Russia, 19 of them women, according to the figures provided by the association.
Vorn Vanrath, a Russian scholarship student for the 2022-2023 academic year who is currently studying and staying in Saint Petersburg, spoke about her experiences there.
She said in a video that applying for a scholarship to study in Russia has three main stages: Creating or registering an account before February 20 and then submitting relevant documents like passport copies and school transcripts. All documents must be translated into Russian at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
The family of scholarship recipients must pay between $200 and $300 a month for daily expenses for each student.
Russia continues to provide scholarships despite Cambodia maintaining a firm stance against its military offensive in Ukraine and co-sponsoring the UN General Assembly resolutions against the invasion and attempted annexation of Ukrainian territories. Cambodia has also provided technical training with Japanese assistance to Ukrainian deminers.
The embassy said Russia has paid close attention to the development of humanitarian cooperation with Cambodia despite political differences, noting that more than 8,000 Cambodian students have graduated from Russia since the 1980s.
