An experimental physicist originally from Russia is now one of the most undesirable applicants on the global academic job market. Even IT specialists and theoreticians find it easier to secure employment than those who actually know how to turn lab concepts into working experiments. In Europe, the primary legal barrier is a sweeping expansion of European export control legislation regarding dual-use technologies, enacted in September 2025. The underlying bureaucratic logic dictates that since resources are insufficient to separate safe Russians from untrustworthy ones, it is simpler to exclude everyone. Consequently, anti-war students who fled Russia in 2022–2023 are finding themselves blacklisted by Western companies and universities, forcing them to move to China and Arab nations. T-invariant shares the story of scientist Nikita Asmedianov, a clear example of this unfolding crisis.

Trump’s clash with the US judicial system is taking on alarming forms. On June 27, the Supreme Court (in a 6-3 decision along conservative lines) issued a ruling that drastically limits the ability of lower federal judges to block presidential executive orders nationwide. From now on, judges can only block the president’s actions in relation to specific plaintiffs. This ruling marked Trump’s first major court victory of the year. What comes next for America? T-invariant asked lawyer Ekaterina Mishina for clarification.

June 22, 1941, marked the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Today, 84 years later, Ukrainian cities are again under bombardment—but now the aggressor is Russia. How has the war in Ukraine altered our understanding of that past conflict? What revelations about history does the present compel us to confront? T-invariant discussed these questions with Alexander Dmitriev, a historian and native of Kherson, now a visiting researcher at the European University Viadrina (Germany).

In the coming days, the U.S. Senate is expected to confirm the new director of the National Institutes of Health. The key institution of American science has come under pressure from the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), which is headed by Elon Musk. Why the reforms initiated by Donald Trump’s people are reminiscent of the situation in Germany in the 1930s and how the DOGE plans threaten the development of science – the head of one of the laboratories of the National Institute of Health told T-invariant.

Following Donald Trump’s election and his initial presidential steps, it became abundantly clear: the world will never be the same. Who—or what—can save Ukraine today? Can private businesses support initiatives aiding Ukrainians and Russians opposing the war? Was Navalny doomed to die after the war began? What is the actual impact of international sanctions on Russia? How are Trump and Putin alike? T-invariant discussed these questions with economist Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the University of Chicago. 

In episode 16 of the podcast Invasion: Science in a Time of War, two scientists talk anonymously about how quickly one can become a “traitor to the motherland” for the leadership, how school principals are caught between the political hammer and the educational anvil, and how difficult it is to maintain relationships with colleagues who have left Russia. And also about how people who shared Ukraine’s couch just yesterday got at the helm of higher education.

An international team of scientists analysed 1,371 reports of Gaza war casualties and found that the information circulated by the world’s leading media outlets was falsified. In episode 15 of the Invasion: Science in a Time of War podcast, we speak with the initiator of this study, sociologist Tatiana Glaser.

Current demographic dynamics suggest radical changes around the world. Fertility will fall everywhere, but the main problems are not related to this, but to uneven population growth in different countries. Scientists predict a huge increase in the proportion of Africans by 2100 and a marked depopulation of Europe and North America. Alexander Markov and Olga Orlova discuss the main demographic shocks in the 10th episode of the CounterEvolution podcast.

Could humans have done without religion in their development? Apparently not. Whatever the genesis of religious consciousness, our mind is so organised that belief in the supernatural, omens, fortune-telling, and spirits is almost inevitable. Alexander Markov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, talks about this in episode 12 of the CounterEvolution podcast.

Approximately 4% of the world’s people suffer from depressive disorder, and this figure is higher in women than in men. In the past, doctors used to call it melancholia and could not find a universal treatment. Now they have learnt to cope with depression quite well. And thank God, says Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Markov. This is the 11th episode of the CounterEvolution podcast.

In episode 13 of the podcast “Invasion: Science in a Time of War”, two scientists anonymously talk about how it is possible to meet fellow travellers at the “Noon Against Putin” rally even in an Orthodox church, why professors fear denunciations from students, and how to maintain a rigorous professional level when Russian social sciences and humanities have been set back twenty years.

In episode 12 of the podcast Invasion: Science in a Time of War, two scientists talk anonymously about how hard it is to leave Russia, how internal emigration helps them keep their sanity, why they can no longer discuss the war with colleagues, the difficulty of understanding the true position of the leadership, and what they think about the turn of Russian science to the East.