Like many across the University of Oxford, Worcester College’s community are appalled by the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

On Wednesday, the College’s Governing Body met to address a request brought to us by the undergraduate and graduate student bodies to fly the Ukrainian flag as a display of solidary with the Ukrainian people. Today, the Ukrainian flag will be raised over the College as we continue our discussions to establish what further support we can offer to those affected by the humanitarian crisis.

Welfare support is in place for all of those affected by the situation in Ukraine – including, of course, our Russian students who are not in any sense responsible for their government’s act of aggression. The Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine has already been bravely denounced by many Russian people. As well as condemning the invasion of Ukraine we also wish to remind our community that anti-Russian sentiment against individuals will not be tolerated at Worcester. The welfare team are available to all students and staff and can be contacted by email in the usual way: welfare@worc.ox.ac.uk.

We also recognise that the invasion of Ukraine is not the only humanitarian crisis that is ongoing. In our recent Governing Body meeting we also continued our discussions about what Worcester College can do to support those fleeing from acts of aggression around the world. We will be providing an update on this to members of our community as soon as we are able to.

For more information on support provided across the University, please see: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/university-response-invasion-ukraine