T-invariant opens a series of publications related to the second anniversary of the war with Ukraine. Our publication began at the same time, in 2022, with the publication on the website t-invariant.org of an anti-war letter from scientists. It was translated into many languages and became very important evidence that Russia is not silent in response to the monstrous and tragic decisions of the Kremlin leadership. A year later, in February 2023, a group of scientists and science journalists launched based on a media website that connects Russian and international science in war conditions.
In the first investigation, we tell how the FSB of the Russian Federation launched the largest “case of scientists” in modern Russia, persecuting the signatories of an anti-war letter throughout the country.
Open letter from scientists against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine became the largest public demonstration by a single professional group. It’s been 2 years since almost 9 thousand leading Russian-speaking scientists from around the world publicly condemned Russia’s military aggression.
The FSB of the Russian Federation naturally appreciated the scale of the statement. Security service officers en masse summoned the signatories of the appeal directly for interviews, and also acted through the leadership of universities and institutes. Many scientists have been threatened with criminal charges or opened as a means of intimidation. The overwhelming majority of scientists did not remove their signatures despite pressure and threats, however, even after 2 years, people refuse to speak openly about their experience of communicating with the FSB, even if they left Russia immediately after the incident, including on conditions of complete anonymity.
The editors of T-invariant decided to talk about the largest “case of scientists” in modern Russia, since the threat from the FSB to employees of universities and institutes is rapidly increasing every day. Scientists and opponents of the war who could not or did not want to leave Russia are under constant pressure from the intelligence services and need support no less than their colleagues who are fleeing the country. This is just one of many examples of why, as Alexei Navalny said, it is impossible to “equalize Russia and Putin.”
Evidence of a growing threat - an increase in the number treason case in relation to scientists, return practices of punitive psychiatry, including in relation to a corresponding member of the RAS Sergei Abramov (accused of transferring money to an extremist organization) and other examples of pressure that we recorded in the project “Chronicles of the persecution of scientists”.
We have verified all our interlocutors, but we are forced to omit any details that could give out the heroes and harm themselves, their relatives or colleagues. The fear that the publication’s interlocutors talk about, in response to requests to share details, must definitely wait for its researcher into the social atmosphere and the role of the intelligence services in Putin’s Russia.
The largest case identified by T-invariant concerns a research institute in one of the regions of Russia, in which an anti-war letter was signed by several dozen employees.
“Shocked by what happened, they signed with a large team”
“The letter was signed by more than 20 employees of our institute. FSB officers came to everyone for a conversation. Then there were administrative courts. This all dragged on for several months, but in the end no one was even issued a fine and the case was formally closed for everyone due to the statute of limitations,” said a T-invariant interlocutor who received a temporary position at one of the Western universities.
“My husband and I were dragged to the FSB and to court for a long time, but, in the end,They barely closed it due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, while strictly warning them not to sign anything else anywhere,” said another employee of this research institute.
In total, T-invariant spoke with 5 employees of this institute, most of whom left the institute and the Russian Federation, they also noted the courage and firmness of the director of the institute in defending them before the FSB.
Young researchers went out to picket near the monument to Valentin Koptyug in Akademgorodok on the evening of February 25, 2022. tayga.info
“The director showed me a stack of printouts of my Facebook posts”
“I learned about the FSB’s interest in me immediately after signing the letter, the head of our institute called me and honestly told me everything. After that there was a long pause,” a biologist and well-known popularizer of science from another region told T-invariant.
In his laboratory, “the majority are like-minded,” but in the institute as a whole, “total silence reigned,” employees from different laboratories do not trust each other. The signatory of the letter had a reduced number of administrative and representative functions and tasks, and the number of public appearances was reduced.
“After a long time, the director called me again and showed me a stack of printouts of my Facebook posts. I don’t know who brought them to him, from the office or from colleagues. There were also my posts that I wrote, and then, after the adoption of various laws, I lost them. I said it was a provocation. I think this was another signal,” the scientist said.
They came for their wives
The anti-war letter was signed by a variety of scientists. Including 28 academicians and 55 corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Taking into account the extremely passive public role of the Academy (we wrote about this, for example, here) - not so little. However, the RAS has a total of 1905 members (820 academicians and 1085 corresponding members). That is, the letter was signed by 4.4% of the RAS staff.
The editors of T-invariant are aware of at least two cases when security forces decided to put pressure on academicians not directly, but through their wives.
Both academic families are socially and politically active, both spouses have repeatedly attended rallies in Moscow, and both have signed an anti-war letter. In each case, the male scientist occupies a higher academic and leadership position than the wife.
Immediately after signing the letter, a police officer came to the apartments of the high-ranking signatories, but the conversation was only with his wife. Then the woman was called for a preventive conversation at the police station. In each case, the Ministry of Internal Affairs did not specifically mention the scientists’ letter, but listed other collective letters that contained the signatures of women scientists, as well as their reactions on social networks under posts with oppositional content. They were informed about the undesirability of participating in uncoordinated street actions. T-invariant’s interlocutors conclude that a visit from an Interior Ministry employee to a high-ranking scientist-signer would be an overreaction, and the “signal” was sent through his wife. One of the families left Russia.
Instead of the FSB - auditors
Also, the editors of T-invariant are aware of several episodes when, after signing an anti-war letter, major scientists began to have problems with grant funding.
“For many years, I and the team under my leadership have successfully received grants from the Russian Science Foundation. The audit first came to us in the spring of 2022. Coincidence? I don’t think so,” says a major academic leader.
Most of T-invariant’s interlocutors believe that the degree of pressure from the FSB is directly related to the strength of character and administrative weight of the head of the institute.
“There was administrative pressure in some other institutions in our city. I also know that the FSB put pressure on my director because of me, but he sent them. There were no consequences for me or him. That is, I think the standard option is this: the FSB puts pressure on the director, and he puts pressure on the employees. Some people end up quitting and moving away. My director, fortunately, is not like that,” explains one of the scientists.
AmongThere are not many heads of academic universities who openly expressed anti-war views, but there are also many who saved their employees from mobilization and evaded pressure from the security forces. Thus, in one academic institute in October 2022, the director organized an urgent business trip for male employees of military age to another country. And another institute, where a husband and wife, both doctors of science (of military age), worked as leading researchers, received a denunciation against the husband, who publicly expressed an anti-war position. The family left Russia in the first months of the war, but the administration wanted to maintain their affiliation with the institute. “The director called me,” says the wife, “and asked my husband to write a letter of resignation due to moving to another country. The director bitterly admitted: “If the FSB had not come to me and threatened the institute, I would never have done this.” At the same time, he asked me not to quit and to work calmly, since I had not received such a demand from the FSB. So, despite the fact that I have been living in another country for two years, I have the opportunity to maintain contact with colleagues, work for a small part of the salary and sometimes come to the institute.”
Lev Landau went on a solo picket against the war. Monument to the scientist near MIPT, Dolgoprudny. Action of Physics and Technology students. April 19, 2022. Telegram channel “Phystech against war”
In general, statistics show that among the directors of academic institutions there are much more people with an anti-war position than among the rectors of universities. Among the thousands of scientists who signed the anti-war letter, there are several directors of research institutes and not a single Russian rector. The administration in higher education is more loyal to war and power than the research sector.
“In the spring of 2022, we thought that the war would end quickly, and therefore we held on to the teachers and staff who had left, and to our Western colleagues, we wanted to maintain all ties,” says a representative of the administration of a large capital university - but now it is clear that iron walls are being built on both sides for a long time; communicating with Western science is extremely costly in terms of time, effort, and money; It is impossible to retain remote workers for a long time. And we began to expand to universities in the countries of the East and Asia.”
This idea was clearlysound at the meeting with students of the rector of IKBFU. I. Kant Alexandra Fedorova: “As it was before, it will never be again. Some directions are closed to us. On the other hand, new partners mean new opportunities. We are actively opening our representative offices. Take a closer look, for example, at Uzbekistan. The country has a very high level of universities. Our new representative office will soon open in India.”
The realization that “it won’t be the same as before” led to intensive getting rid of teachers who are out of step with the new course.
“My reality has become a crossover of the worlds of Orwell and Remarque”
A scientist from St. Petersburg shared his case (we present his letter in full)
The main place of work was a scientific institution, but I worked at the university as an external part-time assistant professor. I almost immediately signed the “Scientists Against War” petition. At the end of February, while conducting several laboratory works, I tried to communicate with students - to find out their attitude to what was happening. I shared my thoughts with approximately the following content: “I strongly disagree with everything that is happening and I really hope that their generation (students) will be much more thoughtful about the world, politics, literature and art.” In addition, he said that I feel “how my reality has become a crossover of the worlds of Orwell and Remarque.”
About a month later, the head of the department called me for a private conversation and asked me “not to have any more conversations with students.” And in May, when the head of the department needed to distribute the workload for the next year, the academic department did not approve my workload, citing the fact that “an oral order was received from the rector - not to give this workload.”
As it turned out a little later, there were students who recorded part of the conversation on video, and this became known to the “freelance security officer at the university.” Exactlyhis conversation with the rector influenced the current circumstances.
I beg you - anonymously, please.
I, of course, tried to explain a lot of things to the students: about the half-swastika, and about real goals, and about fascism as such, and it was nice that some of the students understood what they were talking about speech, but, as it turned out, there were also fighters for the purity of the ranks.
How scientists were fired at St. Petersburg State University
Several researchers from St. Petersburg (SPbSU) told T-invariant their stories of finishing work at the university literally as a carbon copy. According to our information, the city FSB department recommended that the university management not renew contracts with all “unreliable” employees. The mass dismissal of employees began afterappointmentin September 2023 of the former head of the center’s political department ” E” FSB in St. Petersburg Oleg Shaidulin to the post of Deputy Vice-Rector for Security of St. Petersburg State University.
mathematician, St. Petersburg State University:
After signing the letter, they made it clear at the department that the expiring two-year contract would not be renegotiated due to a “signal from above.” At the same time, due to the large number of scientists who left after the start of the war, there was no person who could be made the leading executor of the RSF grant, and the immediate management offered to take this role under a contract agreement, but their decision was also cut down.
linguist, St. Petersburg State University:
At the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg State University, contracts were simply not renewed with all the signatories of the letter. No one really hid why this was so. But I’m lucky, I work at another wonderful university in the city, I don’t want to draw attention to it.
physicist, St. Petersburg State University:
I was given one reason: “unwanted activity on social networks.”
Andrey Seryakov, physicist, St. Petersburg State University
The only person who openly spoke about the end of his work at St. Petersburg State University was physicist Andrei Seryakov. A participant in international collaborations at CERN and Dubna, a popularizer of science, and a permanent organizer of educational events in St. Petersburg, told T-invariant that he was fired from St. Petersburg State University for political reasons.
According to his information, the FSB demanded the dismissal from the university of scientists found participating in the “smart voting” of Alexei Navalny’s FBK. Andrei has a strong anti-war position, and he also signed a letter from scientists against the war.
Only in his laboratory at St. Petersburg State University, “out of a dozen non-teaching researchers, four were “fired,” the scientist said. It was mainly researchers who were fired or not renewed because they tend to have relatively short contracts and are much easier to terminate than faculty. Some were offered to find a compromise solution if the person could prove his loyalty and express approval of the “SVO”.
The forced departure of Andrei Seryakov from St. Petersburg State University has now become the last known episode of the dismissal of a scientist by the editors of T-invariant, which is most likely backed by the FSB of the Russian Federation. The editors continue to monitor the persecution of the signatories of the anti-war letter. If you want to tell us your case or share other data, write to us at[email protected]and also write to us at chat bot in telegram 👉🏿@invariant2023_bot
We guarantee you complete anonymity.
Text: Eugene Nasyrov, Olga Orlova
Eugene Nasyrov, Olga Orlova 23.02.2024