Spartak Subbota (right) and Yevhen Yanovych at the Podcast Therapy show. Screenshot from YouTube. A new scandal in Ukraine caused a wider discussion on the failures of the university education system and media responsibilities. The result of a journalistic investigation on Spartak Subbota, published on April 11, 2023, in a youth media outlet, was devastating: over 153,000 words and about five hours of the film proved in great detail that the celebrity had faked his biography and credentials. Spartak Subbota, 31, has been promoting himself in Ukraine as a scientist, doctor, and psychology guru since 2017. He was a co-host of a popular podcast on psychology called Podcast Therapy, which drew up to a million online views on YouTube. The 70-minute podcast was designed as a conversation between two friends and was hosted by professional comic actor Yevhen Yanovych. The episodes mostly consisted of Yanovych reading questions to Subbota from viewers seeking advice. It was launched in early 2022 and had 86 episodes altogether, with an average of 500,000 views per episode by the beginning of April 2023. Subbota claimed he had studied to be a psychiatrist — a degree which only medical schools can grant in Ukraine. According to the author of the investigation, psychotherapist Illya Poludyonny, Subbota never studied in a medical university. Instead, he got a degree as a psychologist in a non-medical university, meaning, that he did not have the skills and credentials for medical treatment of people. A psychology degree takes 5 years, and reports indicate Subbota started studying in 2009. However, he insisted that he started to study medicine at 15, as it takes about eight years to become a psychiatrist. In 2017, at the age of 25, Subbota was pretending to hold a Ph.D. This was the weakest point of the story he apparently invented. Subbota was free to spread lies about his university education because, in Ukraine, this information is considered private. A university or any other state body cannot share education-related information with a third party. But information about dissertation defenses, as well as dissertation texts, are public. And according to public data, Subbota defended his dissertation in 2022. Subbota's story is indicative of a much larger issue. In Ukraine, university degrees are seen as a status symbol essential for getting or maintaining a certain social status. For this reason, the entire system of university education is riddled with scandals and problems. Two subsequent ministers of education and science of Ukraine were accused of plagiarism, with no consequences to them nor to the people and institutions responsible for awarding them with the Ukrainian analog of the Ph.D. degree. The demand for Ph.D. candidates in Ukraine is higher than in many other countries, but the quality of submitted work is often notoriously low. In his investigation, Poludyonny stumbled upon a complicated network that helps people fraudulently obtain Ph.D.s in psychology. In the case of Subbota and several other candidates, the required foreign research publications were actually published by a set of Ukrainian journals registered under virtual addresses in the United States and the UK, all connected to Subbota's academic supervisor. In addition, it appeared that Spartak was a false name that he adopted after he graduated from university — a good way to protect the information about his education if someone were to go searching. The muscular, heavily tattooed psychologist started gaining prominence in 2019, masterfully increasing his presence in the media. In three years, his work led him from the biggest Ukrainian online media to nationwide TV shows and the New Yorker website, all featuring or citing him as an expert. A publishing house in Ukraine whose mission is to promote Ukrainian scholars popularising science published and republished a book by Subbota several times and was preparing the publication of the second one. But, most seriously, Subbota converted his popularity into demand for his services as a psychotherapist. Some female clients of his later complained to Poludyonny of unprofessional and abusive treatment, where he pursued sexual relationships with them and caused additional trauma for the young women. The denunciation caused a storm on Ukrainian social media, with many users celebrating Subbota's fall and the excellent investigative work. Others tried to defend Subbota in the comments, pointing to Poludyonny's conflict of interest as a fellow psychologist – theoretically, Subbota's competitor - and the helpfulness of the information Subbota provided via his podcast. Interestingly, it appeared that the majority of Subbota's listeners and viewers were teenagers.