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Mathematics Is a Live Performance.” Misha Verbitsky on Intelligent Mold, Non-Consensus Realities, and Aesthetics as the Last Refuge of Human Reason

In June 2026, the mathematician Misha Verbitsky ended up in an Armenian jail, caught in the automatic machinery of intergovernmental agreements that Russia has pressed into service for political persecution. Starting from that story of police and politics, his conversation with T-invariant editor Alexander Sergeev turns steadily more philosophical. How is polarization destroying scientific unity? Why doesn’t a powerful intellect protect anyone from insane ideas? And how does the “intelligent mold” of AI call into question both human cognitive exceptionalism and the value of mathematical truth, returning us to first principles — the joy of communication and pure aesthetics?

“It’s a high-speed train, an express”: Criminal case against HSE University mathematician Andrey Dymov lasted less than a month

For the second time this month, a scientist has been convicted of donating to the Anti-Corruption Foundation. However, the two trials unfolded in vastly different ways. Mathematician Andrey Dymov was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony after just two hearings. Meanwhile, the case of physicist Evgeny Onishchenko dragged on for a considerable time and concluded with a sentence that is quite lenient by today’s standards: a year and a half of forced labor. Preliminary evidence suggests that authorities have decided to strip defense attorneys of the time needed to defend those who donated to Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF).

Winter is coming. Why has the FSB reclassified research on the Russian North as working for foreign intelligence?

Doctor of Medical Sciences Alexey Dudarev spent 25 years as the lead author of regular monitoring reports on pollution in the Arctic originating from Russia. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, official participation by Russian scientists in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) working group of the international Arctic Council was paused, but contacts resumed in 2025 — something Maria Zakharova of the Russian Foreign Ministry announced enthusiastically. The joy was short-lived: less than a year later, the FSB arrested Dudarev, and the new five-year Arctic pollution monitoring report will likely be released without up-to-date Russian data — for the first time since 1991.

“While behind bars, I became freer.” Bauman associate professor gets three-year sentence over songs in his playlist yet claims a moral victory

On December 19, Alexander Nesterenko — Candidate of Philosophical Sciences and associate professor at Bauman Moscow State Technical University — was sentenced to three years in prison for Ukrainian songs included in his playlist in the VKontakte social network. T-invariant reports how exactly the philosophy department lecturer and amateur historian reacted to his verdict, what he said in his final statement, and what his wife — whom he met at rockabilly jive dance classes shortly before his arrest and married while already in pretrial detention — now plans to do.

“I definitely won’t live to see the end of his sentence. This is a death sentence for me”: the mother of physicist Artem Khoroshilov on her son’s verdict, his case, and himself

“Not an Enemy, but a Friend of the People”: The Trial of a Kurchatov Institute Employee

The Gatchina District Court has resumed hearings in the case of Dmitry Bogmut, a technician at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute named after B.P. Konstantinov (part of the Kurchatov Institute). After the onset of the war in Ukraine, Bogmut posted anti-war videos in a private thread on a forum with only a dozen users. He has been held in a pre-trial detention center for a year and a half and faces up to ten years in prison. Court hearings are regularly attended by a crowd of men in camouflage, seemingly organized as “extras”, identified as “Donbas volunteers.” Meanwhile, the names of activists supporting Bogmut have been publicly disclosed by state news agencies, leading to threats against them.

“Severe Civil Disability.” The Founder of Russia’s Supercomputing Industry Remains Free, but Faces Severe Restrictions on His Rights

On July 11, the Pereslavl District Court announced the verdict for Sergei Abramov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The court found the scientist guilty of funding extremist activities (Part 1, Article 282.3 of the Russian Criminal Code) and imposed a fine of 150,000 rubles (approximately $1,500). The charges stemmed from seven donations totaling 7,000 rubles (~$70) to the FBK (the transliterated Russian acronym for Fond Borby s Korruptsiyey — the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by Alexey Navalny). While the legal ordeal has concluded, Abramov’s return to an active professional life remains a distant prospect. In an interview with T-invariant prior to the verdict, Sergei Abramov described how his presence on the “extremists and terrorists” list has led to what he calls, if not a “civil death,” then severe civil disability.

“In the Typically Treacherous English Manner”: How the FSB Turns Philologists into Spies for Contact with British NGOs

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.

Operation “Young Chemist”: How Security Services Fuel a Treason Case Using Fertilizer and Children’s Science Kits

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.

Don’t leave room 663: Moscow State University staff face total audit of all publications and speeches

As the bill granting the FSB control over scientists’ international cooperation advances through the Duma, universities have begun tightening scrutiny of all academic materials and public statements—under the guise of “state secret” checks. Though interagency guidelines on state secrecy were issued to universities over a decade ago, the era of total control is just beginning. Staff at Moscow State University (MSU) shared with T-invariant a new directive threatening to revoke bonuses and stipends for non-compliance. Similar orders have emerged at other institutions.

“This Bridge was Burned”. Why did Young Scientists from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus not Find a Place in the United States?

Fellows of the prestigious Fulbright program faced big problems after the program’s sponsors (IIE and Cultural Vistas) were recognized as undesirable organizations in Russia in March 2024. T-invariant reported on this in detail last summer. What is happening today with young scientists from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine?