Additionally, even in government run universities in the west, there is the concept of academic freedom[2], meaning that faculty are able to teach their material freely without having to fear retaliation from the government (in the United States, this is effectively limited to "tenured" professors, it's more general in other countries.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_University [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_freedom
Of course not, but government and elite universities are deeply interconnected. Here [1] Yale bragging that "over 500 Yale alumni have been elected to Congressional positions." Just imagine amount of nepotism going on in institutions like Yale, to think that US ruling elite is built upon pure meritocracy is to fool yourself. Of course there would be opportunist like Snyder that will capitalise upon this hype around Ukraine.
Navalny himself attended Yale in 2010, where one might argue he found connections to US private money in fight for democracy against totalitarian Russian government.
[1] https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/11/11/yales-congressiona...
Yale have more in common with United States Military Academy At West Point where [1]
> The runner up after Harvard is Yale University, claiming 5 U.S presidents as alumni.
> Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower are the only 2 U.S. presidents who attended the United States Military Academy At West Point. They are also 2 of the most important military generals in American history
[1] https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/where-did-most-u-s-presidents-...
On top of having zero credentials yourself, you're also making some pretty weird, muddled arguments here:
"Snyder is on the government payroll! Okay so maybe he isn't. But Navalny attended Yale. And so did some people who ended up working for the government. So plainly Snyder in the pocket of ..."
If you don't have time to watch all 23 episodes, the last one is a bit of a summary, discussing the history of European imperialism and colonialism, particularly Nazi German imperialism (conquering Ukraine was a central strategic goal of WW2), and pointing out some European hypocrisy in their reckoning of this history, and how Russia is exploiting that to pursue its own imperialist and colonialist goals.
Yes, there are lots of family and friendship ties between the countries. It's sad that Putin has destroyed any chance of good relationships in the future, and basically solidified Ukraine as a nation in opposition to his aggression.