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Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Russia: university expelled a student after its Antiplagiat AI-content check flagged her thesis; Kazan courts ordered reinstatement and damages

RAPSI and BIZNES Online reported on 8 and 10 June 2026 that the Supreme Court of Tatarstan upheld a ruling that a private Moscow university unlawfully expelled a distance-learning student in 2025 over suspected use of AI in her graduation thesis. According to the university's representatives in court as reported, the Antiplagiat.Vuz system first showed about 41% (41.91%) AI-generated text, her supervisor then said the word order had been deliberately disturbed in more than 70% of the text, and a third check showed 11.92%. BIZNES Online also reports, from the court documents, that a university representative told the court the supervisor does not operate the checking system and had not in fact analysed the text for neural-network generation, and could not explain how the system distinguishes borrowed text from AI generation. The university refused the revised work as late (uploaded on Monday 9 June 2025 against a deadline of 8 June) and expelled her; the department's protocol cited a breach of good-faith work in the Antiplagiat.Vuz system. She denied using AI. In January 2026 the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan held the expulsion unlawful, ordered her reinstatement for a check of her thesis and, if it met the originality threshold, admission to the defence, and awarded 40,000 roubles in moral damages and a 20,000-rouble fine. The Supreme Court of Tatarstan dismissed the university's appeal: it held that the probabilistic report had not been checked by a competent expert and could not be the sole proof of bad faith, noted that the same text was classified as AI-generated in one report and not in another, and found no evidence that any flagged fragments resulted from her deliberate acts rather than her sources or an incorrect algorithm. The courts also held the deadline had been miscounted.

AI system
Antiplagiat AI-text detector
Occurred
2025
Reported
8 June 2026
Event location
Russia
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person · Informed a human decision about the person
Reported harm
Educational Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Education · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account
7 claims: 7 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Antiplagiat.Vuz, the university's text-checking system, whose AI-generated-text detection classified parts of the thesis as generated by a neural network

Reported harm

According to the court rulings as RAPSI and BIZNES Online report them, the student was expelled after the university's Antiplagiat.Vuz report classified parts of her thesis as AI-generated; courts later held the expulsion unlawful and ordered her reinstatement and 60,000 roubles in damages and a fine.

Outcome

Resolved

Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan (January 2026): expulsion unlawful, reinstatement for a thesis check and admission to the defence if the originality threshold is met, 40,000 roubles moral damages and a 20,000-rouble fine. Supreme Court of Tatarstan dismissed the university's appeal (reported 8 June 2026); RAPSI reports the decision is in force. The newest item found in the 2026-10-25 searches is a 17 July 2026 lawyer's commentary; no report of her defence or graduation was found.

What remains unknown

  • The exact date of the expulsion and of the appellate ruling.
  • Whether the student has since defended the thesis or graduated.
  • Whether the university's account of 41.91% and of deliberate word-order manipulation was tested by an expert; the courts found it was not.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. The university's Antiplagiat.Vuz report classified parts of the student's thesis as AI-generated (about 41% on the first check and 11.92% on the third, as the university reported in court), and the expulsion rested on a department protocol finding a breach of good-faith work in that system together with a missed deadline. The appellate court held the probabilistic report was not checked by a competent expert and could not be the sole proof, and recorded that the same text was classified differently between reports.

7 claims: 7 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported According to the university's representatives in court as reported, the Antiplagiat.Vuz system showed about 41% (41.91%) AI-generated text on the first check of the student's thesis and 11.92% on a third check, after her supervisor said the word order had been deliberately disturbed in more than 70% of the text.

Causal attribution. The percentages are the university's account in court; neither report was published.

  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Первая попытка показала 41,91% ИИ-контента.'; 'Третья загрузка зафиксировала уже 11,92% ИИ-контента.'
  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'после первой проверки «Антиплагиат» показал, что в работе 41% сгенерированного нейросетью текста'; 'в тексте намеренно нарушена логическая последовательность слов (более чем в 70% текста)'
Reported The university refused the revised thesis as late and expelled the student; the expulsion rested on a department protocol and a finding that she breached the principle of good-faith work in the Antiplagiat.Vuz system.

Causal attribution. The detector output and the missed deadline were both cited; the courts addressed both.

  • rapsinews.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Студентка исправила работу, но ее не приняли, указав на пропуск срока, а на ее электронную почту пришло уведомление об отчислении.'
  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Основанием для отчисления послужил протокол заседания кафедры, а также вывод о нарушении студенткой принципа добросовестной работы в системе «Антиплагиат.Вуз».'
Reported The student denied using AI in writing the thesis, and her analysis of the reports showed that the same text was classified as AI-generated in one report and not in another.

Causal attribution. The student's position as recorded in the rulings.

  • rapsinews.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Истец утверждает, что никогда не пользовалась технологиями искусственного интеллекта при написании работы'; 'В отдельных случаях один и тот же текст был классифицирован и как сгенерированный искусственным интеллектом, и как написанный человеком.'
  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'в отдельных пунктах один и тот же текст в отчете от <…> был отнесен к ИИ-контенту, а в отчете от <…> не был отнесен к ИИ-контенту, и наоборот'
Reported In January 2026 the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan held the expulsion unlawful, ordered her reinstatement for a check of the thesis and admission to the defence if it met the originality requirement, and awarded 40,000 roubles in moral damages and a 20,000-rouble fine.

Causal attribution. Court order as reported by outlets that read the rulings.

  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'В январе этого года Вахитовский суд встал на сторону студентки'; 'взыскать с университета в пользу девушки компенсацию морального вреда в размере 40 тыс. рублей и штраф 20 тыс. рублей'
  • rapsinews.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Суд признал отчисление незаконным, обязал восстановить истца, допустить к защите и выплатить 60 тысяч рублей.'
  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'с вуза взыскали 40 тыс. рублей компенсации морального вреда и 20 тыс. рублей штрафа'
Reported The Supreme Court of Tatarstan dismissed the university's appeal, holding that the probabilistic report had not been checked by a competent expert and could not be the sole proof of the student's bad faith, and that there was no evidence that flagged fragments resulted from her deliberate acts rather than her sources or an incorrect algorithm.

Causal attribution. The appellate court's assessment of the detector evidence; it does not find that the detector was wrong, only that the report was unverified.

  • rapsinews.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Апелляция согласилась с этим решением, оно вступило в законную силу.'; 'Вероятностный по своей природе отчет не был подвергнут надлежащей проверке лицом, обладающим необходимой компетенцией'
  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Однако вышестоящая инстанция апелляцию вуза оставила без удовлетворения.'; 'явилось следствием умышленных действий самого обучающегося, а не, к примеру, особенностей использованных источников или некорректной работы программного алгоритма'
Reported The courts also held that the university had miscounted the submission deadline, since a deadline falling on a Sunday moves to the next working day.

Causal attribution. A non-AI ground of the ruling, recorded so the outcome is not attributed to the detector finding alone.

  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'студентка загрузила работу в понедельник, 9 июня, в вузе требовали сделать это до воскресенья, 8-го.'
  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'Здесь Верховный суд Татарстана применил ст. 193 Гражданского кодекса.'
Reported According to the court documents as relayed by BIZNES Online, a university representative told the court that the supervisor does not operate the checking system and had not in fact analysed the text for neural-network generation, and could not explain how the system distinguishes borrowed text from AI generation.

Causal attribution. The university's own representative's statement in court, which qualifies the supervisor's manipulation finding in c1; relayed by one outlet from documents obtained by RIA Novosti.

  • business-gazeta.ru(opens in new tab) supports · Russian
    'представитель университета в суде заявил, что научный руководитель не владеет системой проверки и фактически не проводил анализ текста на нейросетевую генерацию'; 'не смог пояснить, каким образом система различает заимствования и ИИ-генерацию'

Sources

3 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in Russian on 2026-10-25 (full item). RAPSI says it read the appellate ruling. Translation by the research agent, an AI. Applies to s1.

Read in Russian on 2026-10-25 (full article; quotes the district and appellate rulings, with dates redacted as <…>). The article's statement of the student's study programme is inconsistent within the article and is not used. Translation by the research agent, an AI. Applies to s2.

Read in Russian on 2026-10-25 (full item). It says the court documents were obtained by RIA Novosti, so it rests on the same rulings. Translation by the research agent, an AI. Applies to s3.

Event countries: Russia. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Russia.

The university is a private university in Moscow and the cases were heard by the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan and the Supreme Court of Tatarstan; where the student lives is not used.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-25: Published as a concrete adverse decision informed by an AI-text detector: the university's Antiplagiat.Vuz report classified parts of the thesis as AI-generated and the student was expelled. Under the series rule it adds a legal outcome the published detector cases lack: an appellate court holding that a probabilistic AI-content report cannot be the sole proof without expert verification, with an award of moral damages and a fine against the university, and a recorded failure mode in which the same text was classified as AI-generated in one report and not in another.

People described

A distance-learning undergraduate student at a private Moscow university

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One student expelled and reinstated by the courts. The detector was run by the university, so she is counted as another person harmed.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#ai-text-detector#antiplagiat#expulsion#court-reinstatement#moral-damages#education

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Russia: university expelled a student after its Antiplagiat AI-content check flagged her thesis; Kazan courts ordered reinstatement and damages. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-russia-university-expelled-student-after-antiplagiat-ai-detector-flag-courts-ordered-reinstatement-and-damages

BibTeX

@misc{2025_russia_university_expelled_student_after_antiplagiat_ai_detector_flag_courts_ordered_reinstatement_and_damages,
  title = {Russia: university expelled a student after its Antiplagiat AI-content check flagged her thesis; Kazan courts ordered reinstatement and damages},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-russia-university-expelled-student-after-antiplagiat-ai-detector-flag-courts-ordered-reinstatement-and-damages}
}

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