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Viktor Yampolsky: “The postal address does not matter”

On October 14-15, the annu­al RASA con­fer­ence will be held in Chicago. This year it is ded­i­cat­ed to the 150th anniver­sary of the birth of Sergei Rachmaninov. We dis­cussed what Rachmaninov’s cre­ative expe­ri­ence of emi­gra­tion teach­es, why his works were banned and allowed to be per­formed again in the USSR, and whether clas­si­cal music will stand the test of time in a con­ver­sa­tion with the hon­orary speak­er of the con­fer­ence, the con­duc­tor who per­formed all of Rachmaninov’s works, pro­fes­sor, Director of the Orchestra Northwestern University Music Biehnen School Viktor Yampolsky. Interviewed by Olga Orlova.

Spiderman from Yale. Essay on the biography and scientific activities of Alexander Petrunkevitch

Within the project “Creators” sup­port­ed by Richard Lounsbery Foundation T-invar­i­ant togeth­er with RASA (Russian-American Science Association) con­tin­ues to pub­lish a series of bio­graph­i­cal essays about peo­ple from Russian Empire, who made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to world sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Alexander Petrunkevitch was born in the Chernigov Governorate, but most of his life he worked at Yale University. He became espe­cial­ly famous for his research on arachnids.

Why do we run the T-invariant

The T-invari­ant is a media with the mis­sion to con­stant­ly remind us of time­less civ­i­liza­tion­al invari­ants, and to unite the com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who hold them as liv­ing values.

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War and everyday life: how we learn to live in the extraordinary

What can soci­ol­o­gy tell us about war? For res­i­dents of Eastern Europe, war has ceased to be a word from text­books and news. It invad­ed their homes and their des­tiny, it became part of their every­day life. Ariel University researcher Victor Vakhshtain gave an open lec­ture at the Free University about how war mix­es with every­day life.T-invar­i­ant sug­gests read­ing a short ver­sion of the speech scientist.

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The raven who saw the dwarfs. Essay on the biography and scientific activity of Alexander Vysotsky

Within the project “Creators” sup­port­ed by Richard Lounsbery Foundation T-invar­i­ant togeth­er with RASA (Russian-American Science Association) con­tin­ues to pub­lish a series of bio­graph­i­cal essays about peo­ple from Russian Empire, who made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to world sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. The essay is ded­i­cat­ed to astronomer Alexander Vysotsky. He had worked at the obser­va­to­ry of the University of Virginia. There he com­piled the first cat­a­logue of red dwarfs and exper­i­men­tal­ly con­firmed the rota­tion of our Galaxy.

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“Putin has done so many bad things that it would be very helpful to simply reverse these decisions.” Sergei Guriev — on future reforms

What is the extent of ide­ol­o­giza­tion of edu­ca­tion in Russia? Why will it be impos­si­ble to car­ry out lus­tra­tion in the field of edu­ca­tion? What awaits researchers in Russia and Ukraine after the war? What are the prospects for eco­nom­ic reforms in Ukraine? T-invar­i­ant spoke with Sergei Guriev, Provost of Sciences Po University in Paris. 

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«Brother» and «Mouse». The founders of the MSU Z-organization turned out to be the children of Yuri Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation

At Moscow State University, a stu­dent orga­ni­za­tion of Z-activists is rais­ing mon­ey for ammu­ni­tion and equip­ment for ultra­na­tion­al­ists fight­ing Ukraine, using the offi­cial sup­port of the uni­ver­si­ty’s law fac­ul­ty. T-invar­i­ant has found out that the founders of the asso­ci­a­tion are the son and daugh­ter of Yuri Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

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Man of the Earth. Essay on the biography and scientific activity of Selman Waksman

T-invar­i­ant, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with RASA and with sup­port from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, is launch­ing the “Creators” project. The project will pub­lish a series of essays on immi­grants from the Russian Empire who have made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to glob­al sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. The first essay is ded­i­cat­ed to Selman Waksman, Nobel Prize win­ner and dis­cov­er­er of strep­to­mycin.

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Mutiny P.S.: nobody is ready to defend the existing political order

Has Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow bro­ken the «neg­a­tive equi­lib­ri­um» Russia has been stuck in for the last twen­ty years? Vladimir Gelman, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist, pro­fes­sor at the University of Helsinki, and author of the book on «bad gov­er­nance» in con­tem­po­rary Russia, ana­lyzes the con­se­quences of the failed mutiny and pos­si­ble alter­na­tive scenarios.

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«Are there now enough Curies, Bohrs, and Rutherfords to help scientists from these three countries?» Natalia Berloff on the new symbolism of the Gamow Prize

In 2023, the Georgy Gamow Prize will again be award­ed to two sci­en­tists. The orga­niz­er, the Russian-American Association of Scientists (RASA), announced the start of the col­lec­tion of nom­i­na­tions. This year, the Gamov Prize com­mit­tee was chaired by Cambridge (UK) pro­fes­sor Natalia Berloff.

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Donation to «extremists» or «state treason»: FSB long «led» a major academic leader to arrest

Sergey Abramov, cor­re­spond­ing mem­ber of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has been under house arrest for two months now. He is accused of “financ­ing an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion.” Details of the crim­i­nal case remain unpub­lished, but T-Invariant found out that Abramov had pre­vi­ous­ly been inves­ti­gat­ed under the arti­cle of law on “state trea­son,” and the sci­en­tist had a secu­ri­ty clear­ance for state secrets.

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Hypersound silence. How scientists become the prey of the FSB

Three physi­cists were arrest­ed in so called “Novosibirsk case”. It wasn’t the first time. Previously, four sci­en­tists were also accused of trea­son in dif­fer­ent years. All of the sci­en­tists accused in all these cas­es par­tic­i­pat­ed in the projects of the sev­enth frame­work pro­gram of the European Union “TransHyBerian” (coor­di­na­tor — Von Karman Institute of Hydrodynamics, Belgium). However, the inter­locu­tors and sources of T-invar­i­ant sug­gest that the con­tacts of sci­en­tists with China and Iran are only an excuse, not the rea­son for the arrests. 

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«In matters of climate, Russia cannot be removed from the globe»

The mil­i­­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex is one of the dirt­i­est indus­tries in terms of its impact on cli­mate and the envi­ron­ment, even in peace­time. It is espe­cial­ly harm­ful to the plan­et dur­ing active com­bat oper­a­tions. Why was Russia not exclud­ed from the glob­al cli­mate process after February 24, 2022? Climate pol­i­cy experts Marianna Poberezhskaya and Olga Dobrovidova explain.

Chronicles of persecution of scientists

T-invari­ant and CISRUS launched a chron­i­cle of vio­la­tions of the rights and free­doms of sci­en­tists and teachers 
Dismissals, fines, stigma­ti­za­tion, crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, tor­ture - all this awaits in Russia those who try to tell the truth, oppose war, pro­tect peace, crit­i­cize the author­i­ties, or sim­ply do their aca­d­e­m­ic and ped­a­gog­i­cal work hon­est­ly. Behind every dry admin­is­tra­tive or crim­i­nal report lies a human dra­ma. The whole world should know about it. 

T-invari­ant and the cen­ter CISRUS will work togeth­er to doc­u­ment the per­se­cu­tion of aca­d­e­mics in Russia for as long as it con­tin­ues. If you have wit­nessed or been the tar­get of aca­d­e­m­ic harass­ment, please con­tact us at [email protected].

The chron­i­cle records vio­la­tions of the rights and free­doms of sci­en­tists and teach­ers as cit­i­zens of the Russian Federation, as well as vio­la­tions of their aca­d­e­m­ic rights and free­doms by the man­age­ment of their sci­en­tif­ic institution.
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Gleb Verdian

Date of the inci­dent: September 7, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: con­vic­tion for trea­son
Institution: Astrakhan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering 

Summary: The Moscow City Court has sen­tenced 21-year-old stu­dent of the Astrakhan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Gleb Verdiyan, to six years’ impris­on­ment in a strict penal colony for trea­son against the state (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This was announced by the press ser­vice of the courts of gen­er­al juris­dic­tion in Moscow. In addi­tion to the prison term, Verdiyan was sen­tenced to a fine of 200 thou­sand rubles and a restric­tion of lib­er­ty for one year. 

Sources: Current Time, Mediazona, BBC News
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Valery Garbuzov
Date of the inci­dent: September 1, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: Dismissal
Institution: Georgy Arbatov Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN)

Summary: Russian his­to­ri­an and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Valery Garbuzov con­firmed to TASS on September 2 that he was dis­missed from his post as direc­tor of the Institute for U.S. and Canada of RAN, at the ini­tia­tive of the founder:” Yes, yes­ter­day an order was signed to ter­mi­nate my con­tract. The rea­son as such is not stat­ed there, there is such an arti­cle of the employ­ment con­tract - at the ini­tia­tive of the founder, that’s how it is formulated.” 

Source: TASS, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”
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Azat Miftakhov

Date of inci­dent: 25 August 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: a crim­i­nal case on jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of ter­ror­ism was ini­ti­at­ed
Institution: Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics 

Summary: A crim­i­nal case was opened against math­e­mati­cian Azat Miftakhov, who in 2021 was sen­tenced to six years in a penal colony on charges of break­ing a win­dow in a United Russia office, for jus­ti­fy­ing ter­ror­ism (Article 205.2 Part 1 of the Criminal Code). On 17 August, Rosfinmonitoring added Miftakhov to the reg­is­ter of ter­ror­ists and extrem­ists. At that time it was not offi­cial­ly report­ed under which arti­cle the math­e­mati­cian was charged. 

Sources: RTVI (Telegram chan­nel), Mediazona
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Yulia Galyamina

Date: August 25, 2023
The court declared the dis­missal illegal
Institution: RANEPA

Summary: The Koptevsky District Court of Moscow par­tial­ly sat­is­fied the claim of for­mer munic­i­pal deputy, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor Yulia Galyamina, who chal­lenged her dis­missal from the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). This is stat­ed on the court’s web­site. In Galyamina’s telegram chan­nel writes: “I was rein­stat­ed at RANEPA as an assis­tant pro­fes­sor. They col­lect­ed 115 thou­sand for ille­gal dis­missal. Of these, 10 are com­pen­sa­tion for moral dam­age (we asked for 500).” 

Sources: Telegram chan­nel of Yulia Galyamina, Mediazona, court web­site
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Alina Olekhnovich, Ivan Trofimov 
Date of inci­dent: July 26, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: house arrest
Institution: Higher School of Economics 

Summary: The Basmanny District Court of Moscow placed 22-year-old Ivan Trofimov and 21-year-old Alina Olekhnovich under house arrest until September 24 in the case of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the activ­i­ties of an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion. Trofimova and Olekhnovich are stu­dents of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, accord­ing to the university’s web­site, both are study­ing in the field of “cin­e­ma and video art” at the Department of Contemporary Art. Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov wrote about the deten­tion of young peo­ple in his Telegram channel. 

Source: Mediazona
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Mikhail Lobanov
Date of inci­dent: July 7, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: dis­missal
Institution: Moscow State University 

Summary: On June 23, the Ministry of Justice rec­og­nized can­di­date of phys­i­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal sci­ences Mikhail Lobanov as a for­eign agent, which tech­ni­cal­ly pro­hibits him from teach­ing. Lobanov writes: “I saw a pho­to of the order dis­miss­ing me from the posi­tion of asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of mechan­ics and math­e­mat­ics at Moscow State University. The order is dat­ed July 7, issued and signed on behalf of the act­ing. Rector of Moscow State University by Vice-Rector Andrei Fedyanin.” 

Source: RBC
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Center of Historical Memory 
Date of inci­dent: July 4, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: vio­la­tion of auton­o­my
Institution: Center of Historical Memory, Perm 

Summary: On July 4, the Center for Historical Memory (suc­ces­sor to the Perm depart­ment of the human rights research orga­ni­za­tion Memorial) was fined 300 thou­sand rubles in the case of “dis­cred­it­ing” the Russian army (Article 20.3.3 Part 1 Administrative Code). Since the deci­sion was made in absen­tia, the exact rea­son for draw­ing up the pro­to­col is cur­rent­ly unknown. Presumably, the rea­son could have been the appeal of the International Memorial on February 24 last year on the Perm Memorial web­site. The same domain is now used by the Center for Historical Memory. 

Source: PROPERM.RU
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Mikhail Belousov

Date of inci­dent: 06/​02/​2023
Type of vio­la­tion: dis­missal
Institution: St. Petersburg State University 

Summary: The man­age­ment of St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU) dis­missed Mikhail Belousov, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the Institute of History, for dis­trib­ut­ing mate­ri­als “dis­cred­it­ing the con­duct of a spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tion by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and insult­ing the mem­o­ry of those killed in the line of mil­i­tary duty.” The deci­sion was jus­ti­fied by the fact that crit­i­cism of the war “vio­lates the moral tra­di­tions of the uni­ver­si­ty and gen­er­al­ly accept­ed eth­i­cal standards.” 

Sources: Mediazona, Fontanka
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Alexandra Arkhipova
Date of inci­dent: May 26, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: declared as a for­eign agent
Institution: inde­pen­dent researcher 
Summary: The mes­sage from the Ministry of Justice says: “A.S. Arkhipova in coop­er­a­tion with for­eign agents took part in the pro­duc­tion of some cer­tain mate­ri­als and par­tic­i­pat­ed in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of these mate­ri­als to an unlim­it­ed num­ber of peo­ple. She dis­sem­i­nat­ed false infor­ma­tion about the activ­i­ties of gov­ern­ment bod­ies of the Russian Federation and the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. She opposed the spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tion in Ukraine”. 

Sources:: Interfax, FB Ivan Kurilla, E1.
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Sergey Chernyshov
Date of inci­dent: May 26, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: recog­ni­tion by a for­eign agent, dis­missal
Institution: Novosibirsk Novocollege 

Summary: On May 26, col­lege direc­tor Sergey Chernyshov was rec­og­nized as a for­eign agent. The main rea­son is the refusal to hold “Conversations about the Important” in the col­lege. For some time he remained the direc­tor. As Chernyshov wrote in his VK, a for­eign agent can­not teach, but he can orga­nize the learn­ing process, that is, he can work as a direc­tor. But this state did not last long - on June 15, Chernyshov left the post of direc­tor of the New College. 

Sources: Siberia.Realities, VK by Sergey Chernyshov (posts on May 26 and June 15)
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Mordovian State University 

Date of inci­dent: May 22, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: forced vot­ing
Institution: Mordovia State University 

Synopsis: Rector Dmitry Glushko forced stu­dents of Mordovian State University to vote for him in the United Russia pri­maries. The demands were dis­trib­uted through the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law, Irina Ginzburg. Glushko plans to become a mem­ber of the region­al parliament. 

Source: telegram chan­nel SOTA
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Natalia Podolyak
Date of inci­dent: May 11, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: dis­missal
Institution: Siberian Institute of Business, Management and Psychology 

Brief: Teacher and activist Natalia Podolyak was fired from the Siberian Institute of Business, Management and Psychology, where she ran a sports club. The moti­va­tion­al part of the order states that the dis­missal was caused by vio­la­tions of the law on coun­ter­ing extrem­ism and vio­la­tions of labor duties. Earlier, Natalia Podolyak was fined for dis­cred­it­ing the Russian army in con­nec­tion with her com­ment that the Russian mil­i­tary in Ukraine is fight­ing “on for­eign soil.” In addi­tion, in 2020 she was sen­tenced to 10 days for “insult­ing the police.” According to Podolyak, she had no dis­ci­pli­nary sanc­tions for her work. 

Sources: Radio Liberty, Natalia’s FB post Podolyak (order of dismissal)
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Sergey Abramov
Date of inci­dent: April 12, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: arrest
Institution: A. K. Ailamazyan Program Systems Institute of RAS 

Summary: Corresponding mem­ber of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Abramov was arrest­ed under the arti­cle on financ­ing extrem­ism (Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). By a res­o­lu­tion of the Pereslavsky District Court of the Yaroslavl Region dat­ed April 12, 2023, a pre­ven­tive mea­sure was cho­sen against him in the form of house arrest for a peri­od until June 10, 2023. House arrest was extend­ed until August 10. On this charge, Abramov faces up to 5 years in prison in accor­dance with Part 1 of Art. 282.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. 

More details in T-invari­ant
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Valery Zvegintsev, Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk 
Date of inci­dent: April 7, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: arrest
Institution: Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 

Summary: On April 7, Valery Zvegintsev, Doctor of Technical Sciences, founder of the lab­o­ra­to­ry “Aerogasdynamics of High Velocities” of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was arrest­ed. Earlier, two more employ­ees of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anatoly Maslov and Alexander Shiplyuk were arrest­ed. All of them became sus­pects in a crim­i­nal case on “high trea­son” (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). 

More about this case wrote by T-invariant
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Pavel Kolosnitsyn
Date of inci­dent: April 6, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: fine
Institution: Novgorod University 

Synopsis: In January, police drew up an admin­is­tra­tive report against archae­ol­o­gist Pavel Kolosnitsyn from Novgorod University for his com­ment on a post about mobi­liza­tion, in which he assessed Russia’s loss­es in Ukraine. On February 21, the court fined Kolosnitsyn 30 thou­sand rubles. for abuse of free­dom of the media (part 9 of arti­cle 13.15 of the Administrative Code). The sci­en­tist said he would appeal the deci­sion. On April 6, the Novgorod District Court left the court deci­sion unchanged. Earlier, Kolosnitsyn said that a denun­ci­a­tion against him was writ­ten by an acquain­tance from anoth­er city.
Source: North.Realities
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Free University
Date of inci­dent: March 31, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: per­se­cu­tion, vio­la­tion of auton­o­my
Institution: Free University 

Summary: In 2021, the orga­niz­ers reg­is­tered the Free University NGO in Latvia. On March 31, 2023, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation rec­og­nized the activ­i­ty of the edu­ca­tion­al project as “unde­sir­able”. Russian laws make it pos­si­ble to bring cit­i­zens to admin­is­tra­tive and then crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty for any “par­tic­i­pa­tion in the activ­i­ties” of such organizations. 

Sources: T -invari­ant, Free University
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Oleg Orlov
Date of inci­dent: March 21, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: accu­sa­tion of repeat­ed dis­cred­it­ing of the Russian Army
Institution: Memorial. Human Rights Center 
Summary: As Interfax report­ed on March 21: “A crim­i­nal case has been opened against for­mer board mem­ber of the liq­ui­dat­ed International Memorial Society (con­vict­ed as a for­eign agent in the Russian Federation) Oleg Orlov for re-dis­cred­it­ing the Russian Armed Forces”. The case was ini­ti­at­ed under Article 280.3 Part 1 (on the repeat­ed dis­cred­it­ing). The max­i­mum pun­ish­ment pro­vid­ed for this crime is impris­on­ment for a term of up to three years. A pro­hi­bi­tion of depar­ture was cho­sen as a pre­ven­tive action. 

Sources:: Interfax, FB Center Memorial.
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Moscow Aviation Institute 
Date of inci­dent: March 20, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: coer­cion to sign a sum­mons to the mil­i­tary enlist­ment office to receive a diplo­ma
Institution: Moscow Aviation Institute 

Brief: Students of the Moscow Aviation Institute who grad­u­at­ed from the spe­cial­ist’s pro­grams report­ed that they are being refused diplo­mas until they sign the sum­mons to the mil­i­tary reg­is­tra­tion and enlist­ment office. One of the stu­dents said that along with the diplo­ma, it is required to sign a sum­mons in the office where diplo­mas are issued, and he sits as a mil­i­tary com­mis­sar. This takes place in the branch of the insti­tute on the Taganskaya metro sta­tion.
Source: Radio Liberty, RBC
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Penza State University 
Date of inci­dent: March 16, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: coer­cion to sign a sum­mons to the mil­i­tary enlist­ment office to receive a diplo­ma
Institution: Penza State University 

Summary: In March 2023, Andrey Surkov, mil­i­tary com­mis­sar of the Penza Region, announced that Penza State University grad­u­ates will receive sub­poe­nas along with their diplo­mas to be reg­is­tered in their mil­i­tary spe­cial­ty.. An agree­ment has been reached only with this uni­ver­si­ty. Surkov said that the call for mil­i­tary train­ing is over - there are more than 140 peo­ple. At the same time, Surkov said that the fol­low­ing agen­das would be annulled.
Source: telegram chan­nel Idel.Realii
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Viktor Novogorsky
Date of inci­dent: March 15, 2023
Violation type: expul­sion
Institution: Mari State University 

Summary: Third-year stu­dent Viktor Novogorsky was expelled from the Mari State University. Failure was cit­ed as the offi­cial rea­son. However, the Mari Ushem orga­ni­za­tion believes that the stu­dent was expelled due to his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the activ­i­ties of this orga­ni­za­tion, aimed at rais­ing the self-aware­ness of the Mari people. 

Source: Idel.Realities
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Konstantin Miroshnikov
Date of inci­dent: March 15, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: dis­missal
Institution: Moscow International University 

Synopsis: Konstantin Miroshnikov, teacher of the Introduction to Journalism course and for­mer employ­ee of Echo of Moscow radio sta­tion, was dis­missed by agree­ment of the par­ties from Moscow International University. The dis­missal was the result of denun­ci­a­tions. According to the author of one of the denun­ci­a­tions, Miroshnikov gave stu­dents a report on the top­ic “A jour­nal­ist and his activ­i­ties.” When grad­ing, the opin­ions of the teacher and the stu­dent regard­ing the text about the VGTRK employ­ee dif­fered, a denun­ci­a­tion was writ­ten against the teacher, and Konstantin Miroshnikov was fired. 

Source: Radio Liberty
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Nikita Menshov
Date of inci­dent: March 11, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: arrest
Institution: Ural State Law University 

Summary: Freshman Nikita Menshov has become a new defen­dant in a crim­i­nal case of high trea­son. On March 11, at 5:35 am, Menshov was detained in Vladikavkaz by a patrol of the police depart­ment No. 2 of the Zaterechny dis­trict for 15 days for “obscene lan­guage.” But on March 25, he was not released. On May 11, TASS, cit­ing the secret ser­vice, claimed that Menshov was sus­pect­ed of try­ing to go over to the side of the ene­my. The agency calls it an “attempt” to com­mit treason. 

Source: BBC Russian
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SOVA Center
Date of inci­dent: March 10, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: vio­la­tion of auton­o­my
Institution: Information and Analytical SOVA Center 

Brief: On March 10, the Ministry of Justice filed a law­suit to liq­ui­date Information and Analysis SOVA Center. The law­suit was filed as a result of an unsched­uled inspec­tion that took place in the orga­ni­za­tion from January 9 to February 4. “Violations” the depart­ment con­sid­ered the par­tic­i­pa­tion of SOVA in events out­side of Moscow - sem­i­nars and round tables in the Russian regions, as well as online con­fer­ences of the OSCE. All these “vio­la­tions” were con­firmed by employ­ees of the Ministry of Justice with screen­shots from SOVA web­site. The orga­ni­za­tion is cur­rent­ly appeal­ing this decision. 

Source: OVD-Info /​a>
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Elena Kabakova
Date of inci­dent: March 7, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: fine
Institution: Pyatigorsk State University 

Summary: The court fined Elena Kabakova, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at Pyatigorsk State University, 30,000 rubles under an arti­cle about dis­cred­it­ing the army because of her paci­fist state­ments in a con­ver­sa­tion with stu­dents.
Source: Caucasian Knot
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Students of St. Petersburg State Agrarian University 
Date of inci­dent: January 26, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: threat of expul­sion
Institution: College of St. Petersburg State Agrarian University “Tourism”

Summary: St. Petersburg State Agrarian University col­lege stu­dents Ekaterina and Anastasia were sum­moned to the dean’s office because they sub­scribed to the Smart Voting pro­jec­t’s mail­ing list. They are threat­ened with expul­sion, but the man­age­ment claims that this is due to poor aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance, although the record­ing of the con­ver­sa­tion does not cor­re­spond to this. Both stu­dents claim that they signed up for the mail­ing list before the sum­mer of 2021, that is, before the Smart Voting project was rec­og­nized as extrem­ist.
Source: Fontanka
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Artem Izgagin
Date of inci­dent: January 1, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: fine
Institution: Pervouralsk Metallurgical College 

Summary: On January 11, Artem Izgagin, a math­e­mat­ics teacher from the Pervouralsk Metallurgical College, was con­vict­ed of dis­cred­it­ing the Russian army. The court imposed a fine of 40 thou­sand rubles. After the start of the spe­cial oper­a­tion, he post­ed sev­er­al posts on social net­works, in which the court saw “dis­cred­it­ing the army.” State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein demand­ed that the teacher be fired for his pub­li­ca­tions.
Sources: E1.ru
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Ilya Inishev
Date of inci­dent: December 27, 2022
Type of vio­la­tion: Dismissal
Institution: Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow 

Summary: On December 27, 2022, the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow fired Ilya Inishev, who has been a pro­fes­sor at the Higher School of Economics since 2010, where he head­ed the mas­ter’s pro­gram in Cultural Studies.
Sources: Insider SibReal Doxa Code of Conduct for HSE University Staff
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Olesya Krivtsova
Date of inci­dent: 2022 December

Type of vio­la­tion: house arrest, expulsion

Institution: Northern (Arctic) University, Arkhangelsk

Summary: In December 2022, Russian author­i­ties placed Olesya Kryvtsova, a stu­dent at Northern (Arctic) University, under house arrest after she spoke out on social media against Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine. Krivtsova was threat­ened with a term of up to sev­en years for dis­cred­it­ing the army and jus­ti­fy­ing ter­ror­ism. Krivtsova left house arrest and left the coun­try. Currently lives in Lithuania.

Source: telegram chan­nel Freedom for Olesya Krivtsova
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Denis Skopin

Date of inci­dent: 10/​26/​2022
Type of vio­la­tion: Dismissal
Institution: Saint Petersburg State University 

Summary: On October 26, 2022, Denis Skopin, a pro­fes­sor at Saint Petersburg State University (SPbGU), was fired after protest­ing against the mobi­liza­tion of men liable for mil­i­tary ser­vice in Russia.
Sources: RFERL Bumaga
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DISCUSSIONS

«At first I thought it was a fake» — sci­en­tists on reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism of the Institute of General Genetics director 

A.M. Kudryavtsev, cor­re­spond­ing mem­ber of the RAS, direc­tor of the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the RAS, made a bla­tant­ly fun­da­men­tal­ist pre­sen­ta­tion at a the­o­log­i­cal con­fer­ence. He claimed that muta­tions are caused by sins, that human lifes­pans are short­en­ing because bib­li­cal char­ac­ters lived for hun­dreds of years, and that Russia is forced to war because peo­ple in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries have mul­ti­plied too much. «At first I thought it was a fake,» write with­out col­lu­sion in response to the obscu­ran­tism Acad. Alexei Khokhlov and bioin­for­mati­cian Alexander Panchin. There is also a response from the head of the RAS Commission against Pseudoscience, Acad. Eugene Alexandrov.

29.03.2023
Victor Vakhshtayn con­tin­ues the dia­logue with Mikhail Sokolov 

Responding to Mikhail Sokolov’s points, Viktor Vakhshtayn con­tin­ues his dis­cus­sion of the obsta­cles that arise in trans­fer­ring the results of soci­o­log­i­cal research obtained in one soci­ety to another.

28.03.2023
Sociologist Mikhail Sokolov responds to an inter­view with Victor Vakhshtayn 

Mikhail Sokolov has post­ed detailed remarks fol­low­ing an inter­view with Victor Vakhshtayn pub­lished by T-invar­i­ant. Spoiler alert: «Russian social sci­en­tists … do not need to aban­don Russian mate­r­i­al in the past by eras­ing it along with the part of their lives ded­i­cat­ed to col­lect­ing it. If you under­stand how the men­tal maps of the social sci­ences are arranged, … you can, hope­ful­ly, avoid such sacrifices.»

25.03.2023
Countries import­ing Russian fake dissertations 

Prof. Andrei Rostovtsev list­ed the coun­tries whose cit­i­zens, accord­ing to Dissernet, active­ly use the oppor­tu­ni­ty to receive aca­d­e­m­ic degrees in Russia for fal­si­fied dis­ser­ta­tions. China is in first place, fol­lowed by most Third World coun­tries, and there are even some European coun­tries on the list. And for instance, Tajikistan suc­cess­ful­ly sells Russian-lan­guage forg­eries to Iranians. 

07.03.2023
Ukrainian sci­en­tists call for boy­cott of Russian science 

The Nature web-site reports about an open let­ter of Ukrainian sci­en­tists with an appeal to the world sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty to boy­cott Russian sci­ence. The Russian sci­en­tif­ic dias­po­ra is dis­cussing the top­ic in the RASA group.

03.03.2023
Where is arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence tak­ing us? 

How should we per­ceive the new gen­er­a­tion of AI sys­tems, what to expect of them, and how will they change us? Scott Aaronson, an AI secu­ri­ty spe­cial­ist, talked about this in an inter­view to Sergei Nemalevich, a sci­ence jour­nal­ist of Radio Liberty. It’s a good start­ing point for those who have not yet real­ized how seri­ous things are. 

27.02.2023
Masks: proven inef­fec­tive­ness or unproven effectiveness? 

According to the new Cochrane meta-ana­ly­­sis, the effec­tive­ness of masks against the spread of res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tions has not yet been proven. However, they assess the reli­a­bil­i­ty of this con­clu­sion is low because the avail­able research is incon­clu­sive. Science jour­nal­ist Ira Yakutenko explained in detail why this is the case. We can argue there until the prop­er research arrives.

27.02.2023
The RAS is wind­ing down the fight against pseudoscience 

Machine trans­la­tion

The oth­er day it turned out, accord­ing to the Club of Academicians “July 1”, that in December 2022 the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences decid­ed «to trans­fer the func­tions of the RAS Commission on Combating Pseudoscience and the RAS Commission on Counteraction to Falsification of Scientific Research to the Expert Council of the RAS». The lead­ers of the com­mis­sions were not even informed about this. In 2018, the RAS Commission on Combating Pseudoscience was split into two, severe­ly lim­it­ing the right to pub­lic state­ments (only with the approval of the Presidium of the RAS). Now it is going to the point where the prob­lems of pseu­do­science and fal­si­fi­ca­tion will no longer be con­sid­ered inde­pen­dent­ly. Academics hope to chal­lenge this deci­sion at the General Assembly of the RAS in May.

25.02.2023

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