For the first time in Russian history, a court is about to issue a sentence typically given to real terrorists and serial killers, solely for allegedly intending to commit a crime. State prosecutor Madina Dolgieva has requested 34-year-old physicist Artem Khoroshilov be sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of treason, DDoS attack, and preparation of sabotage. To date, this is the record term requested for a member of the scientific community. “The system is turning feral — especially in cases related to the ‘SVO’. And the claim that the defendant’s high intellect is an aggravating circumstance has left us all reeling,” say scientists interviewed by T-invariant. (‘SVO’ is the official euphemism for the invasion of Ukraine. — T-invariant)

Over the past three and a half years of active sanctions policy, only four rectors of Russian universities have been added to Western “blacklists.” The most prominent among them is Nikita Anisimov, only the second rector in the history of the Higher School of Economics (HSE). T-invariant reports on how, under his leadership, HSE has once again outpaced all other universities, but this time — in militarization, promotion of the pro-war ‘Z’ ideology, participation in the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, and direct involvement — by Anisimov himself, his team, and even students — on the front lines and in occupied territories.

Russia’s FSB has opened a criminal case, accusing Mikhail Khodorkovsky and members of the Anti-War Committee of attempting a violent takeover and forming a terrorist organization. The list of the accused includes Eugene Koonin, head of the Evolutionary Genomics Laboratory at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and member of the T-invariant coordinating council, as well as tech entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich, founder and CEO of Destinus. T-invariant has learned just how unexpected these charges of especially grave crimes were for them and how they might impact their lives.

Following the invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of Western brands exited Russia. Over the past three-plus years, amid official rhetoric about import substitution, a parallel logistics system has taken shape — one that keeps Russian store shelves stocked with foreign goods and supplies drones and other military equipment with critical components. As the country adapts to a long-term life under sanctions, this parallel economy demands new expertise. Russian universities and other players in the education market have ramped up the production of specialists trained in the fine art of sanctions circumvention.

For Russian humanities scholars, any ties to British NGOs have shifted from toxic to criminal. T-invariant has uncovered who became the first to face administrative charges for collaborating with the Oxford Russia Fund. Through the case of a Volgograd professor, the outlet reveals how public trials of philologists—those who “sounded the alarm too late”—are now orchestrated. The story features all the hallmarks of such prosecutions: a department head’s televised repentance on a federal channel and textbooks, published with NGO support, being symbolically dumped outside the British Embassy.

The initial court hearings in the case of young physicist Artem Khoroshilov have revealed that, over two and a half years of persecution, FSB officers failed to coherently link their evidence to the charges of “terrorism and extremism.” The prosecution’s exhibits—a 20-year-old “Young Chemist” science kit and ammonium nitrate seized from the apartment of his retired mother—remain as tenuous as the case itself. T-invariant publishes the full transcript of Tamara Khoroshilova’s interrogation, discloses new details from this legally unprecedented and shockingly brutal prosecution, and traces the year-long surveillance of the scientist prior to his arrest.

Alexei Soldatov, a well-known scientist and entrepreneur, one of the founders of Runet, who was convicted in a case of abuse of power, has been sentenced to Ryazan region. In an interview with T-invariant, his son Andrei Soldatov, editor-in-chief of the website “Agentura.ru”, told what may be behind his father’s case, what FSB supervisors at large enterprises and universities are really doing, and why in Russia, despite the large number of convicted scientists and representatives of the IT-sphere, there are no sharashki 2.0.

A verdict is expected imminently for Sergei Abramov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). On March 25, he turned 68, but the last two years have been erased by the FSB: Abramov stands accused of financing extremism—specifically, seven donations totaling 7,000 rubles to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). The trial, now dragging on for nearly a year, has seen the scientist attempting to prove that the prosecution failed to establish who authorized the payments or their intended recipient. He has also challenged the validity of a linguistic analysis of his Facebook posts conducted by a bachelor’s-degree law graduate. Abramov faces up to eight years in prison, and his family fears he may not survive incarceration. 

Behind the facade of Putin’s discussions with technocrats about the threats posed by Western generative chatbots lies the full-scale militarization of Russia’s artificial intelligence sector. T-invariant examines how Russian forces are already using AI to guide kamikaze drones via optical navigation (immune to enemy electronic warfare), refine combat tactics with drone swarms, overhaul military logistics, and repurpose cryptography—now geared more toward cyberattacks than data protection.

Vladimir Putin’s eldest daughter is now publicly positioned as a major scientist with a “world-class laboratory”. Her Hirsch index is extremely low, which did not prevent Vorontsova from winning a large RNF grant on par with the country’s most successful scientists.

We launched exactly two years ago. T-invariant seeks to amplify the voices of scientists who oppose the war and resist archaic mindsets. Since then, these outdated ideologies have increasingly taken hold across continents. We are diligently working to find our own way to combat this. But in this search, it’s vital for us to know we’re not alone. We were delighted to receive birthday messages from our heroes, readers, and colleagues.

During the trial of physicist Oleg Kabov, it emerged that the criminal case had been initiated by two of his former students. One of them, after threatening Kabov, joined the FSB (Federal Security Service of Russia), after which the second student filed a denunciation against his former scientific supervisor. It also became clear that the embezzlement case lacked any financial evidence, and that the allegations regarding the falsification of Kabov’s scientific results had been manufactured by FSB officers. The prosecution is demanding a seven-year prison term, a significant fine, and a three-year prohibition on conducting scientific research. The defendant has asked the judge to reopen the investigation. The judge must now decide whether there is sufficient information to deliver a verdict or if the case should be sent back for further investigation.