The administration of the LEO online school says it has no connection to columnist Alexander Nevzorov, who mentioned the school shortly after the attack on a school in the Moscow region. Representatives of the school told Novaya-Europe this on December 17.
On the morning of December 16, an attack took place at the Uspenskaya secondary school in Odintsovo. According to the outlet, ninth-grade student Timofey K., armed with a knife and pepper spray, overpowered a security guard and entered the building. The Telegram channel Baza reported that he may have been looking for a specific teacher. During the evacuation, 10-year-old Komilzhon was killed after the attacker reportedly caught up with him near a staircase. Emergency services later detained the student and freed a hostage with whom he had barricaded himself in a classroom.
Several hours later, Nevzorov posted footage on his Telegram channel showing the dead child’s mother and urged subscribers to choose online education, specifically mentioning LEO School. The post said the school allegedly had no “vatniks, racists, or Putinists,” and that its graduates were already studying at Oxford and Cambridge. The original post was seen by nearly 400,000 people; the direct reference to the school was later removed.
“We did not place, commission, approve, or coordinate any advertising or promotional activity on Alexander Nevzorov’s Telegram channel or on any other personal platforms in connection with the tragic death of a child,” the school said.
In its letter to the редакция, LEO representatives stressed that the school has no commercial, advertising, or partnership relationship with Nevzorov or members of his family. They also said using a tragedy involving a child’s death to promote educational services was unethical and unacceptable. The school expressed condolences to those affected and said it had asked for all links to it to be removed and had taken steps to publicly distance itself from the post.
At the same time, Novaya-Europe notes that since 2022, Nevzorov has regularly left a link to the LEO School website under his YouTube videos and, according to the outlet’s count, has done so at least 700 times. The school said it does not control mentions posted by private individuals on personal platforms and cannot comment on the motives behind such publications. The outlet also recalled that in September 2024, Nevzorov promoted the same school after a school shooting in Georgia in which four people were killed. Later, in an interview with Yuri Dud, he said he considered that form of advertising appropriate.