Rectors signing the letter in support of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Photo: wikimedia commons

Essays War and the academic community in Russia

The outbreak of the war on February 24, 2022, was a real shock for the Russian science and higher education, and completely turned the situation upside down, even in comparison with the negative trends of the previous years.

Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 2022:1-2, pp 38-44
Published on balticworlds.com on June 22, 2022

Academic freedoms in Russia before the war

Higher education has traditionally been considered in Russia as an important factor of international prestige.¹ In addition, the development of international projects within the framework of the modern neoliberal approach has always been seen by Russia as a serious financial component related to international student exchanges, as well as the opportunity to use higher education as a “soft power”.² Meanwhile, Russia traditionally continues to maintain a serious position in the field of higher education, mainly in the natural sciences.³ President Putin himself sees this work as very important, regularly convening meetings of the Presidential Council for Science and Education and takes an active part in it. In particular, the participants of the meetings actively discuss the internationalization of science and higher education in Russia; at one of the last major meetings, information was disseminated that in recent years, Russia has invested more than 2 billion Euros in joint international scientific projects.⁴ Nevertheless, real investments in education and science, according to OECD, are such that real investments in research and development in Russia are three times less than such leaders as the United States, Japan and Israel and less than half average of the OECD.⁵

In the field of the higher education, joining the Bologna process, the rapid development of many new human studies (human rights, gender studies), active cooperation in the traditional Russian fields, as well as the emergence of new educational institutions or innovative projects in the traditional universities as a result of international support and cooperation — all this taken together promised a serious breakthrough for Russian science and education.

Nevertheless, the position of Russian universities in the international ranking, which was actually the main goal of the 5-100-2020 program, continues to be modest. By 2022, only Moscow State University reached the top 100 (78^th place) in the QS ranking, and the Higher School of Economics entered the top 50 industry universities together with the Moscow State University; at the same time, the position of the rest of the program participants is in the middle of the third hundred.⁶ However, some universities were also included in the subject ranking, and Russia was among the 10 countries in terms of the number of universities included in different QS rankings.

Those relative achievements of the Russian science and higher education were reached in “the time of prosperity”, the era of high oil prices, and were accompanied by serious restrictions of academic rights and freedoms. First of all, the autonomy of universities has sharply decreased, many democratic procedures in the field of university self-government have disappeared, and the level of authoritarian managerialism has increased — all these factors were combined with rather serious financing of higher education compared to previous periods.⁷

At the same time, especially after 2011—2012, the situation in the sphere of academic rights and freedoms in Russia has deteriorated. This was primarily due to increased pressure on students and teachers who took part in the civil protests against the falsification of the elections of 2011—2012, and then against the annexation of Crimea. In general, this time can be described as a time of conservative turn, which dramatically increased authoritarian trends in Russian society and worsened the situation with academic rights and freedoms in the country.⁸ First of all, there were serious restrictions on academic freedom of speech⁹, serious problems in a number of studies, including history¹⁰ and gender studies, growing fear for espionage¹¹ and securitization of the higher education and the science¹².

The active search and identification of “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations” had a special effect on Russian science¹³ and education; among the latter, even before the war, Bard College (USA) was recognized undesirable.¹⁴ As a result, the state began to prosecute not only “pro-American influence groups in universities”,¹⁵ but also criminally prosecute teachers and activists; now the trial of the Doxa student magazine editors accused of “calling on minors to go to unauthorized rallies” is nearing its end.¹⁶

Therefore, the situation with academic rights and freedoms has seriously deteriorated. This also affects the international assessments of the situation: for example, the V-DEM project shows a serious drop in indices related to academic rights and freedoms, especially after 2014.

The outbreak of the war on February 24, 2022, was a real shock for the Russian science and higher education, and completely turned the situation upside down, even in comparison with the negative trends of the previous years.

The Russian academic community and their attitude to the war

It is worth mentioning that the Russian academic community has never been politically monolithic. This is especially true for humanitarian and social studies. Russian sociologists M. Sokolov and K. Titayev believe that the Russian science is divided into “provincial” science, that is, the science, which is mainly engaged in the adaptation and rephrasing of the world science, without creating new theories and concepts, but included in international exchange and context, and the “native” one, which for various reasons is isolated from external sources of information and focuses on the development of some autochthonous, often quite exotic and archaic topics for an outside observer.¹⁷ In Russia, these groups roughly coincide with the political division between the broadly understood democratic and conservative camps of Russian scientists. According to M. Sokolov and K. Titayev, there is a division “[…] between those who believe that reading Western books is more important than the Russian ones, and those who are sure of the opposite, more or less along the line separating Bolotnaya Square from Poklonnaya Gora”.¹⁸

This division was vividly reflected in the reaction to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. When the conservative camp, which generally agrees with the logic proposed by the Russian authorities, welcomes and supports the “special military operation”, as the official Russian authorities shamefully call the war, the democratic academic community reacted with protests, dismissals and fleeing from the country. At the same time, those few “systemic liberals” in the scientific community who were forced to sign pro-war statements, apparently tried in every possible way to soften the official aggressive rhetoric, describing situation as a “conflict”, with “equal responsibility of both sides”.

An example of an obviously pro-state position is a letter from teachers of the St. Petersburg University, which expressed support for “the difficult decision of President Putin”, and also stated that “it is unacceptable to take actions leading to division”.¹⁹ It is significant that there are representatives of “native science”, in particular, working as experts in cases against representatives of the political opposition, among those who signed a letter in support of the war.²⁰ The Academic Council of the Ural Federal University acted in a similar way.²¹ It states, inter alia, that:

The university community cannot remain indifferent to the process of displacement of the Russian language and Russian culture from the territory associated with Russia by inseparable kinship, and the destruction of people, respecting their traditions, history, and time-honored values.

On February 25, immediately after the invasion began, the representatives of the pro-state Russian Military Historical Society spoke most vividly, having expressed to the President Putin support and confidence that “[…] very soon a special operation to expel from Ukraine the armed bases created by NATO and American advisers and the ideological heirs of Bandera and Shukhevich, finally, will be completed”.²²

However, the most significant as far as the content and the consequences are concerned was the letter of the Russian Union of Rectors. In it, more than three hundred rectors of Russian universities expressed their unconditional support for the war, which was called the actions to “denazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine. The key point of this appeal seems to be the statement that “the universities have always been the support of the state”²³: the complete rejection of autonomy and the affirmation of the state nature of the Russian higher education. It should be noted that this letter made the greatest contribution to the European position regarding the need to fully boycott the Russian higher education and science. No less active were the members of the Russian academic community who actively supported the hostilities on their social pages, not only approving them, but also calling for expansion of “denazification” in Russia itself. Thus, Andrey Mamonov, deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Rossiyskaya Istoriya and an employee of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote on his Facebook page, decorated with the Z symbol of the Russian invasion²⁴: “in addition to the external Ukraine, there is also the internal Ukraine, which must be identified and cleaned up with no less rigidity than the external Ukraine”.

It should also be noted that not all representatives of the Russian science and education supported the war so straightforwardly. Some texts give the impression that the letters of formal support were written under external pressure and contain much less harsh wording than those quoted above.

Indicative in this sense is the statement of the “members of the Presidium” of the Russian Academy of Sciences in which academicians diligently avoid definitions of Russian propaganda, and the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is described as “the escalation of many years of confrontation into an acute military conflict”. The academicians appeal to the international community to “[…] continue and develop cooperation, strengthen international scientific and educational ties, prevent any attempts to restrict access to international scientific infrastructure, publishing opportunities, as well as open databases.”²⁵ Hope for maintaining international contacts and, in general, continuing research and education is also voiced in the statement of the Higher School of Economy, once the most liberal Russian university. The university’s statement, titled “The main capital of the university is people”, instead of “special military operation” ambiguous words like “unprecedented threats”, “political turbulence” are used. In this text, former rector J. Kuzminov, current rector N. Anisimov and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees A. Shokhin, in particular, point out that “We will not stop international cooperation on our own initiative, and we thank those foreign partners who remain committed to academic values accepted all over the world.”²⁶ It is obvious, however, that the number of such partners is constantly diminishing (see the reaction of foreign scientists below).

Noteworthy is that some pro-war statements appeared as a result of anti-war statements, and vice versa. Thus, one of the first anti-war petitions was a petition of the Russian anthropologists and ethnologists, who, protesting against the war, pointed out, in particular, that this “[…] is a path leading Russia to international isolation, the destruction of its economy, culture and science and condemns it to hopeless lagging behind.”²⁷ Immediately after that, there was a kind of refutation of this statement on behalf of the official Association of Ethnographers and Anthropologists of Russia, in which the leadership of the Association stated that ”In the current situation of tough geopolitical confrontation and Russia’s armed actions to protect the population of Donbas, our association is ready to make every possible effort for the sake of peace and mutual understanding between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, for the sake of saving the lives and well-being of our compatriots” and resolutely, in a completely Soviet spirit, disowned the authors of the anti-war petitions, pointing out that “[…] there are many signatories who do not represent our profession and are not members of the association, are not citizens of the Russian Federation or are working abroad”. It is interesting to note that it was signed, among others, by Valery Tishkov, Director of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Funk, Director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of RAS Andrey Golovnev.²⁸ The latter, as the chairman of the organizing committee of the International Association of Anthropologists and Ethnologists IUAES, explaining the reasons for the cancellation of the international congress of this organization in St. Petersburg at the end of May 2022, pointed to “current geopolitical tensions” and was afraid of “[…] losing collaboration with our international colleges”.²⁹

Therefore, the general message of such cautious statements is the belief that science and education should not be “politicized”, but, on the contrary, should serve the “cause of peace”. These formulas clearly echoed the Cold War narrative, when scientific and educational exchanges between the antagonistic parties were understood as a way to reduce military tension.³⁰ Nevertheless, it seems that these hopes are completely unrealistic: we are not talking about a new Cold War, where Russia takes the role of the USSR, but the idea of the aggressor as Nazi Germany, and the cooperation with the aggressor country condemned by most UN countries, of course, has nothing to do with the cooperation between the antagonistic countries in the second half of the 20^th century.

Anti-war statements are silenced and punished in Russia

A part of the academic community, which has always been focused on the international cooperation, and is more democratically oriented, has spoken most sharply and radically. A number of anti-war petitions and letters from Russian students, teachers, representatives of various scientific studies expressed their disagreement with the war. One of the most striking letters of protest was a publication in the Troitsky Variant newspaper,³¹ which is currently supported by more than 8,000 Russian scientists, scientific journalists, students, and teachers. This text states that the war unleashed by Russia is a gross violation of the international law, and the war itself was unleashed “for the geopolitical ambitions of the leadership of the Russian Federation, driven by dubious historiosophical fantasies”. Under these conditions, one of the obvious consequences of the war is “further cultural and technological degradation of the country”.

The newspaper itself was immediately recognized as a “foreign agent”, the page with the letter disappeared from the newspaper’s website and even from the cache of Yandex, the Russian search engine.

The reason for this is the hastily adopted amendments to a number of laws. In particular, a new article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code has been introduced, “Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, maintain international peace and security”.

In the real practice of modern Russia, in fact, any anti-war statement is qualified as “discrediting the actions of the armed forces of the Russian Federation”, and a public call for peace can cost a fine of 50,000 rubles (approximately 600 euros). A much more serious sanction is contained in another law, a criminal one, envisaging prosecution for “fakes”, 207.3: “Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”.³² This law envisages the punishment for “spreading knowingly false allegations” about the actions of the Russian army in form of a fine of 5 million Russian rubles (60 thousand euros) or up to 15 years of imprisonment.

This threat has led to the fact that public protests and anti-war protests of students and teachers begin to be punished by the dismissal of teachers who signed anti-war letters and the expulsion of or threats of expulsion of students.³³ At the same time, the university administration is monitoring the content of social pages of students and teachers, apparently the most politically active ones. Thus, the author of this text, until March 31, a teacher at the Higher School of Economics, after publishing an anti-war post on Facebook in the evening of the same day, received a warning from the management of the Higher School of Economics about ”the inadmissibility of violating the principle of political neutrality” prescribed by the Code of Ethics for the employees of the Higher School of Economics.

Nevertheless, the protest activity of students is growing. The students of Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University filed petitions demanding their rectors to withdraw their signatures under the letter of the Union of Rectors. Separate petitions were drawn up and signed by students of St. Petersburg State University, M. Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russian State University of the Human Studies, Kazan Federal University, Petrozavodsk State University and others.³⁴ At the same time, students and teachers defend the rights of expelled students, conduct flash mobs against the war, participate in anti-war demonstrations and pickets. They are doing all this at the risk of detentions and fines, as well as expulsions and dismissals, and even the initiation of criminal cases.

faculty members and scholars are less active in this regard: for example, according to Konstantin Morozov, Professor at the Free University, out of 150 employees of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, only 5 people signed a letter protesting against the war. Obviously, teachers are more affected by the pressure of the university management, and in general, there is a greater dependence of university teachers and employees.

Still, some teachers in this situation either leave the country or publicly resign from institutions that supported the war. Thus, Andrei Lavrukhin, a teacher at the Higher School of Economics, a citizen of Belarus, resigned and wrote in a statement “in connection with the war in Ukraine” and they did not want to sign his resignation due to his use of the word ”war”.³⁵ Such examples of voluntary resignation, however, are rare: exit power remains very expensive, given not only the political, but also the economic consequences of such a step.

Already at the beginning of the war, the tendency to put pressure on social scientists increased. The previously used mechanism for recognizing journalists and direct political opponents as “foreign agents” began to be actively used against scientists and researchers. It should be noted that earlier a number of research and scientific organizations have already become “foreign agents”³⁶ and even, like Bard College, were declared “undesirable organizations”.³⁷ However, before the war, there were only three people on the list of “foreign agents” being private individuals who were somehow connected with science and higher education, and, apparently, their inclusion in this discriminatory list was due to their active position towards both observers and independent analysts present during elections. With the outbreak of the war, both the author of this text and such well-known Russian scientists and teachers as Ekaterina Shulman and Viktor Vakhshtein were included in the list of “foreign agents”. Moreover, despite repeated allegations that the very status of a “foreign agent” is allegedly non-discriminatory and does not entail a loss of rights, the Russian authorities, according to recent information, plan to prohibit the “foreign agents” who are private individuals from teaching and educational activities (this measure is already being used against organizations recognized as “foreign agents”). In addition, a simple and effective step to “cleanse” the universities from critics and opponents is simply not to renew the contract, explaining it by some administrative, not political reasons.³⁸

In sum, teachers and students are persecuted for anti-war posts, both by university authorities and by law enforcement agencies. Thus, in Blagoveshchensk, historian and local history expert Vladimir Pushkarev was fined under a new article on “discrediting the armed forces”.³⁹ It is to be expected that the list of teachers and students punished for “discrediting” (i. e., their anti-war position) will grow with time.

Of course, the outbreak of the war was actually the beginning of an academic boycott of the Russian higher education and science. All European countries have terminated their cooperation with Russian universities and research organizations.⁴⁰

Many foreign scientists who have worked at Russian universities are also quitting and leaving the country, although not all are equally radical. For example, some foreign teachers left Skolkovo, which broke off relations with MIT in connection with the war, but some remained.

Nevertheless, many teachers, scientists and students are leaving Russia, mainly to Armenia, Georgia, Turkey (visa-free countries for Russian citizens), but also to Europe. In a number of European countries, scientists and students, being in fact in exile, face a total academic boycott of Russian scientists and students, a refusal to cooperate even at a personal level and to accept Russian students was declared by many countries.

All academic exchanges were canceled, and many of the students and postgraduates from Russia and Belarus who applied for various internships and projects were rejected. At the same time, many scientific associations have decided that an official affiliation with the Russian institutions is no longer possible, in particular, at the conferences or other scientific events.

In general, this position was expressed in the direct demand of a number of Ukrainian scientists for a complete academic boycott of the Russian science and education.⁴¹ The initial position of the Ukrainian scientists is the statement that “the Russian universities are an instrument of war”, in particular, because they spread toxic propaganda. Taking into account the official letters of support quoted above, it is hard to disagree with this. It is more difficult to agree with the demand of the Ukrainian scientists in order to protect from the Russian aggression, to lock all scientometric databases for the scientists from Russia and Belarus, to make it impossible to cooperate with scientists affiliated with the state educational and scientific institutions of Russia and Belarus, to prohibit Russian and Belarusian citizens from participating in any way in international publications and scientific projects. According to the authors of the appeal, this academic boycott should not apply to those who can document their participation in anti-war protests. The authors believe that this will push the scientific community to more active anti-war actions. This meaning that for a representative of the scientific and educational community in Russia, in order to be excluded from the academic boycott, they should publicly declare their anti-war position, with the prospect of a dismissal or the prosecution by the Russian state.

A similar position on the issue of publications by Russian authors was taken by some publishing companies, in particular, Clarivate closed their office in Russia. However, another major publishing campaign, Elsevier, said that it would not allow a boycott of Russian researchers.⁴² The position of the journal Nature regarding this boycott is the condemnation of the war and the continuation of personal contacts with Russian scientists. It is significant that Nature, among other things, draws attention to the serious support of the anti-war movement in Russia, including that among scientists and teachers.⁴³

It seems that various statements by scientific associations from different countries show that there is a desire to separate official Russian institutions, which are mostly represented by directors or rectors who have supported the war, and individual scientists, researchers, and students. Thus, the President of Harvard said that maintaining scientific contacts is becoming an even more important task during global crises. At the same time, it is obvious that different countries and institutions clearly have different understanding of the decisions of their governments regarding the cessation of cooperation, and prohibiting either institutional cooperation or any cooperation with Russian researchers, teachers or students. For example, Finland has effectively banned cooperation not only at the institutional but also at the personal level. The University of Tartu in Estonia has announced that it will not accept students from Russia and Belarus in 2022.

However, at the moment, it is not clear what will be the general policy towards Russian and Belarusian researchers who work abroad, as well as towards students from these countries.

It is obvious, however, that the pro-war statements make the situation worse.

The appeal of the Russian Union of Rectors, quoted above, provoked an immediate reaction: for instance, ASEEES noted in the special statement⁴⁴ that “these representatives of Russian higher education have betrayed their responsibility to their educational purpose and to ethnic leadership and brought shame upon their institutions”.

Meanwhile, it is obvious that the Russian scientific community has yet to face large-scale isolation, and its principles and duration depend not only on the development of the military and political situation, but also generally on the position of the international academic community.

International conferences that were planned in Russia are canceled or relocated to other countries. Thus, the above-mentioned International Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists in St. Petersburg was canceled. At the same time, due to the difficulty of obtaining visas and paying for participation in conferences, Russian scientists are unable to get to venues which they could attend in their personal capacity.

Therefore, we are facing a strong and increasing unprecedented isolation of Russian science and higher education, perhaps exceeding the scale of the Cold War and more comparable to the USSR of the late Stalin’s time. Repressions against students, teachers, and researchers who protest against the war expanding in Russia only reinforce this analogy. ≈

Dmitry Dubrovsky was an Associated Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow since 2008, but was declined to renew the contract February 25, 2022, apparently on political grounds, as he is seen as a
“foreign agent”.

References

1
Sirke Mäkinen, “In search of the status of an educational great power? Analysis of Russia’s educational diplomacy discourse,” Problems of Post-Communism vol. 63, no. 3 (2016).

2
E. A. Erokhina. “Rossijskij university kak instrument “myagkoj sily’” [Russian University As An Instrument Of “Soft Power” In The Context Of Higher Education Reform], Philosophy of Education, no. 69, (2016),95—103.

3
V. V. Vlasova, L. M. Gokhberg, and E. I. Dyachenko (eds.) Rossiyskaya Nauka V Tsifrakh [Russian Science In Figures], (Moskva: NIU VSHE, 2018).

4
Stenogramma sovmestnogo zasedanija prezidiuma Gossoveta i Soveta po nauke i obrazovaniju. 2020 [Transcript of the Joint Meeting of the State Council Presidium and the Council for Science and Education]. February 2020. http://prezident.org/tekst/stenogramma-sovmestnogo-zasedanija-prezidiuma-gossoveta-i-soveta-po-nauke-i-obrazovaniyu-06-02-2020.html

5
OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators Highlights on R&D expenditure, March 2021 release https://www.oecd.org/sti/msti-highlights-march-2021.pdf

6
QS University Worlds Rankning 2022 https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022

7
Dmitry Dubrovsky, “Academic Rights and Freedom in Russia: Researchers’ Views”, Introduction to the Special Issue in Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol. 30 no.1, 3—10.

8
For more details see Dubrovskiy, “Academic Freedom in Russia: Between the Scylla of Conservatism and the Charybdis of Neoliberalism” Baltic Worlds vol. 11, no. 4 (2018), 4—11.Available at: https://balticworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/BW-4-2018-HELA_uppslag.pdf

9
Dmitry Dubrovsky “Silent faculty and students needed” Gaudeamus. June 17, 2020. Available at: https://cisrus.org/2020/06/17/trebuyutsya-molchalivye-professora-i-studenty/

10
I. Kurilla “What kind of history will investigators write?” Gaudeamus. September 28, 2020. https://cisrus.org/2020/09/28/kakuyu-istoriyu-napishut-sledovateli/

11
Pavel Aptekar, “How arrests of scientists affect the development of science” Vedomosti, July 31, .2018. https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2018/07/31/776945-aresti-nauki

12
Dmitry Dubrovsky, “The state dreams of bringing Russian science and education to the world level, but it spoils everything itself with its fear of the West” Meduza. August 28, 2021. https://meduza.io/feature/2021/08/25/gosudarstvo-mechtaet-vyvesti-rossiyskuyu-nauku-i-obrazovanie-na-mirovoy-uroven-no-samo-vse-portit-strahom-pered-zapadom

13
Daria Skibo, “Russia: The Number of Foreign Agents is Set to Grow” Gaudeamus. February 22, 2022 https://cisrus.org/2020/02/25/rossiya-inostrannyh-agentov-stanet-bolshe-2/

14
Dmitry Dubrovsky, “Cooperation is undesirable” Gaudeamus June 28, 2021. https://cisrus.org/2021/06/28/smolny-bard/

15
Dmitry Dubrovsky, “Turning yourself into competent authorities” Gaudeamus October 19, 2020, https://cisrus.org/2020/10/19/prosecutor/

16
Dmitry Sidorov “Meet the student journalists, who are trying to change Russia” Opendemocracy April 14, 2021.https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/interview-with-doxa-russian-student-magazine/

17
M. Sokolov and K. Titayev. Ibid., 249—250.

18
Ibid. Bolotnaya Square is the place of active protests of the Russian opposition; Poklonnaya Gora is the venue for pro-government rallies.

19
The pedagogical personnel of the St. Petersburg State University signed a collective letter in support of the “military operation of the Russian Federation” in Ukraine. Kommersant — St. Petersburg. March 4,.2022.https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5240716

20
Dmitry Dubrovsky, “Academic community and ‘humanitarian’ forensic examination of extremism in modern Russia” Journal of Social Policy Studies, vol 18 no. 4 (2020).

21
Appeal of the Academic Council of the Ural Federal University. Adopted on February 28, 2022 https://urfu.ru/ru/about/council/

22
The appeal of the Military Historical Society and its activists on the situation in Ukraine the Military Historical Society.

23
Appeal of the Russian Union of Rectors The Russian Union of Rectors. March 4, 2022 https://rsr-online.ru/news/2022-god/obrashchenie-rossiyskogo-soyuza-rektorov1/

24
Andrey Mamonov. Personal Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=6994137363990230&id=100001821087807

25
“Statement of members of the RAS Presidium” Russian Academy of Sciences, March 7, 2022. http://www.ras.ru/news/shownews.aspx?id=3fdf08dd-1efb-4817-9087-69b642c59660#content

26
“People are the main capital of the university.” NIU-VShE, March 5, 2022. https://www.hse.ru/news/571440941.html

27
“Russian anthropologists against Russian military actions on the territory of the Republic of Ukraine” Change.org https://www.change.org/p/russian-president-and-russian-government-stop-the-war-in-ukraine

28
From the members of the Executive Committee of the Association of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia March 3, 2022. https://aaer.co/2022/03/03/%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%8F-%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F/

29
Andrey Golovnev, official letter to the members of IUAES https://iuaes2022.spb.ru/modules/iuaes2022/assets/files/Letter_to_Congress_participants.pdf

30
PG Altbach and H. de Wit, “Internationalization and Global Tension: Lessons From History”, Journal of Studies in International Education, vol. 19 no. 1 (2015):4—10. doi:10.1177/1028315314564734

31
An open letter of the Russian scientists and scientific journalists against the war with Ukraine. The text is currently unavailable, a copy is available at https://t-invariant.org/2022/02/we-are-against-war/

32
“Putin signed a law on punishment for fakes about the actions of the armed forces”, RBC, March 4, 2022. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/04/03/2022/622266309a7947453165c594

33
Universities are putting pressure on students. https://news.doxajournal.ru/novosti/vuzy-okazyvayut-davlenie-na-studentov-iz-za-vojny-s-ukrainoj-prodolzhenie-hroniki/

34
“Petersburg is against the war” April 12, 2022. https://telegra.ph/K-chemu-mogut-prisoedinitsya-studenty-chtoby-vystupit-protiv-vojny-i-podderzhat-svoih-kolleg-04-12-3

35
“They didn’t sign the resignation, as the word ‘war’ was there.” A Belarusian teacher resigned from a Russian university as a sign of protest. Zerkalo.io, April 1, 2022. https://news.zerkalo.io/life/12071.html

36
Dmitry Dubrovskiy, “Foreign Agents and Undesirable Organizations,” IWM Post, no 116, Fall 2015, 21—22.

37
Dmitry Dubrovskiy “Cooperation is undesirable’ Academe blog, August 5, 2021. https://academeblog.org/2021/08/05/cooperation-is-undesirable/

38
Dmitry Dubrovskiy case. Scholars at Risk, February 25, 2022. https://
www.scholarsatrisk.org/report/2022-02-25-higher-school-of-economics/

39
“In Blagoveshchensk, a case of “fakes” was opened against the historian”, Siberia-Realities, April 12, 2022 https://www.sibreal.org/a/v-blagoveschenske-politseyskie-zaveli-delo-o-feykah-protiv-istorika/31798366.html

40
Dmitry Dubrovskiy, “Russian Academia and the Ukrainian war”, Russian Analytic Digest. # 281 https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/RAD281.pdf

41
Dmytro Chumachenko, Oksana Bilous, Dmytro Sherengovsky Kateryna Zarembo “Russian universities must suffer tougher sanctions”, The Times Higher Education. March 28, 2022 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/russian-universities-must-suffer-tougher-sanctions

42
Else Holly, “Ukrainian researchers pressure journals to boycott Russian authors” Nature, vol. 603 (2022): 559 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00718-y

43
“Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine is wrong and must stop”, Editorial. Nature
vol. 603 (2022): 201. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00647-w

44
Joint statement condemning Russian University presidents’ statement of support for Russia’s assault on Ukraine https://www.aseees.org/advocacy/statement-condemning-russian-university-presidents-statement-support-russias-assault

Dmitry V. Dubrovskiy