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Statement of the Russian-American Science Association in Support of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
We, the members of the Russian-American Science Association (RASA), strongly condemn the drone attack on the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine which caused serious damage and, according to reports, resulted in casualties.
An Expedition to Prison: Why Philosopher Nikolay Zyuzev Was Sentenced to Seven Years
The Supreme Court of the Komi Republic has sentenced philosopher Nikolay Zyuzev to seven years in a strict-regime penal colony on treason charges. Zyuzev, who holds both Russian and Canadian citizenship, is one of the best-known scholars of the legacy of the Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin. He left Russia after the war began, but in the summer of 2025 he returned to his native village in Komi [a republic in northwestern Russia — T-invariant], where he was arrested. According to the FSB, the scholar was training leaders of national liberation movements among Russia’s small Indigenous peoples and receiving funding for his project from foreign organizations. T-invariant looks at what Zyuzev worked on, why he kept coming back to Russia, and what his friends and colleagues make of the treason charges.
The Academic Traffic Light. How Russian universities flag “politically unreliable” academics
Research institutes and universities across Russia are keeping blacklists of their own staff. T-invariant has identified two patterns of pressure on scientists and faculty: they are summoned for “conversations” with FSB officers, or they are left without work when an expiring contract is quietly not renewed.

Special projects

PLAGIARISM NAVIGATOR
Through individual cases of international academic plagiarism, we examine the global-scale imitation of scholarly activity
CHRONICLES OF PERSECUTION OF SCIENTISTS
CREATORS
Essays on scientific activities of emigrant scientists from the Russian Empire
“None of the political parties makes higher education a priority on its agenda”: American higher education through the eyes of a university administrator
Our interviewee today is not allowed to give interviews — under the terms of her employment contract. The senior position she holds at an American university obliges her not to make her political views public and to exercise the utmost caution in public statements. But the changes now taking place at American universities are so far-reaching that she agreed to talk with T-invariant about the serious challenges facing higher education. Her experience as a department chair and dean, and later as a vice president, helps her today to map the critical points in the development of the academic environment: how the new presidential administration is affecting university life, how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has split it, how artificial intelligence is influencing teaching and its administration, what the shrinking of university budgets leads to, and, most importantly, how the very logic by which higher education works has changed.
RASA Statement in Support of Professor Tatiana Tatarinova
Russian-American Science Association strongly condemns the decision of the Russian authorities to designate our colleague Tatiana Tatarinova, a distinguished bioinformatics scholar and professor at the University of La Verne, as a “foreign agent.”
Science After the Break with the West: How War and International Sanctions Reshaped Russian Universities
Since the start of the full-scale war, Russian science has lost key ties with Western universities and research centers. Yet four years of sanctions have not led to a collapse. Instead, Russia rapidly reoriented toward China, other parts of Asia, and the Middle East, while the Kremlin firmly integrated higher education into its system of military priorities. These are the conclusions reached by Olga Orlova, head of T-invariant, in her report Transformation of Science and Education in Russia under Sanctions 2022–2026, which examines changes in Russian academia over the past four years.
Austin Sarat: “Fear Is My Friend”
Renowned American legal scholar Austin Sarat, a founder of the humanistic study of law, on the responsibility of public intellectuals in the United States, the bracing “slap in the face” Trump dealt to universities, and the path forward in defending academic freedom and democracy.
Chronicle of the Persecution of Scientists No. 36
T-invariant is publishing its latest regular report, Chronicle of the Persecution of Scientists No. 36, dated August 31, 2026. Azat Miftakhov has published a paper in the French quarterly La Revue de la filière mathématiques (June–August 2026). The paper was written at the suggestion of French mathematician Bernard Randé, a member of the journal’s editorial board and of the international association Solidarité FreeAzat. Miftakhov completed the work while held in prison in Dimitrovgrad.
Simply Out of This World: How Andrei Klepach Made His Way Through the Thorns of Structural and Monetary Factors to the Stars
Andrei Klepach — one of Russia’s leading economists and a high-ranking economic official of the Vladimir Putin era — has published several academic works over the past six years that are packed with cosmist imagery. His drift into “energy-information cosmism” went unnoticed until Klepach was fired as chief economist of the state corporation VEB.RF — after he publicly offered a bleak assessment of Russia’s ability to compete with the West and with Ukraine. T-invariant traced the economist’s academic evolution into a cosmist and looked into the background of his mentor on the road “toward a cosmoplanetary civilization.” It also turned out that, even after Klepach’s dismissal, VEB.RF has no shortage of people developing alternative “theories of everything”: the “wave hypothesis of life,” the idea of a “Fifth Russia,” and a “noosphere economy.”
New “Undesirables”: Why the Pentagon Is Restricting Cooperation with Moscow State University and Higher School of Economics
On July 23, the U.S. Department of Defense published a new list of organizations it considers a potential threat to U.S. national security. The list includes Moscow State University (MSU), Bauman Moscow State Technical University, the Higher School of Economics (HSE), Ural Federal University, and several other Russian universities and research institutes. American scholars and universities receiving Pentagon funding are advised to terminate cooperation with these institutions. T-invariant examines how this new list differs from sanctions laws and what consequences it may bear for Russian and American science.
Sometimes They Don’t Come Back: Stories of Émigré Scientists 35 Years After the Soviet Collapse
Exactly 35 years ago, on August 21, 1991, the coup attempt by the self-proclaimed State Committee on the State of Emergency collapsed. The Soviet Union itself had four more months to live, but after those three days in August, a completely different life began for millions of Soviet citizens. The changes touched everyone, but scientists were among those whose old lives fell apart especially fast — and on the ruins, new ones began to take shape. Institutes were left without money or staff, and entire fields of research lost their funding. Yet at the same time, the borders opened, and it became possible to work at universities and research centers abroad. Some left for a few months and never came back; others emigrated right away. How did these scientists discover the world of Western science? What did they have to go through? What did it cost them? And why did a temporary departure turn out to be permanent for so many of them? T-invariant presents the stories of how they left and the new lives they built.
Ratings for Money: How Slovakia Rewards Scientific Fraud
While Slovak politicians calmly keep their academic degrees for copied theses thanks to convenient loopholes in the law, far less visible violations are taking place inside the universities themselves. Dozens of scholars appear to be linked to purchased authorship, data manipulation, and publications in predatory journals. The Plagiat-Navigator project tried to determine how deeply academic fraud has penetrated Slovak science.

Chronicle of the Persecution of Scientists No. 35

T-invariant is publishing its latest regular report, Chronicle of the Persecution of Scientists No. 35, dated July 31, 2026. Russia’s State Duma has passed a law aimed at political émigrés. Human rights advocates say it is effectively a citizenship-stripping law. The Russian authorities are expanding the practice of freezing bank accounts outside of any specific case, on the basis of “suspicion” alone. Extrajudicial persecution is becoming ever more widespread.
They Came for the Geneticists? Why Scientists See the New Genetic Data Law as a Threat to Russian Science
On September 1, 2026, right after the summer vacation season, Federal Law No. 43-FZ and Government Decree No. 750 take effect, regulating the transfer of human genetic data outside Russia. Authorities describe the new rules as a measure to protect national security and “genetic sovereignty.” Many scientists, however, see them as a serious blow to international scientific cooperation — fearing new bureaucratic barriers, difficulties publishing in leading scientific journals, and even the risk of criminal prosecution.
A Verdict by Men’s State: T-invariant uncovers the details of Darya Shipacheva’s treason case
On July 29, the Moscow City Court is set to hand down its verdict against Darya Shipacheva, author of books and podcasts about chronic pain. The prosecution of this science journalist and feminist activist illustrates a new pattern in how Russia’s repressive machine operates. Treason cases involving money transfers to Ukraine — like those involving donations to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) — have been fast-tracked: closing arguments in cases seeking 12-year sentences now take just one hearing, lasting only an hour and a half. And online stalking (in Shipacheva’s case, by activists from the misogynistic Men’s State movement) can be enough to trigger a criminal case, including under repressive charges like treason.
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© Т-инвариант / T-invariant, 2026