scientists and university professors are leaving Russia en masse

After the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, not only independent journalists and young people escaping mobilization, but also scientists began to leave Russia.

The publication “Proekt” established the names of 28 notable scientists and teachers of leading universities who left Russia after the start of the war. Among them are world-renowned specialists, laureates of numerous awards. – academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), president of the Moscow Mathematical Society Viktor Vasiliev, corresponding member of the RAS, astrophysicist Yury Kovalev, professors of the RAS, astrophysicist Sergey Popov and biologist Alexander Markov.

The total number of departed scientists is much higher. Only the Scholars at Risk organization took 200 people out of Russia, and the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation helped another 62 scientists to leave. And in Telegram chats for scientists who need relocation, there are now more than six thousand people, notes “Project”.

“Whole scientific industries have stopped, research is simply not being conducted. We are set back years ago,” RAS Professor Sergey Popov told the publication. In February 2022, he signed an open letter against the war, and a few months later he left Russia.

At the same time, as the “Project” writes, no one persuaded the scientists to stay, and on the contrary, scientific and educational organizations squeezed out high-class specialists themselves, including using denunciations and espionage.

Thus, the historian Konstantin Pakhaluk, who did not hide his anti-war position, had to leave the post of deputy director of the science department of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVO). In mid-March, he was released to the president’s administration, where he was accused of ties to Israeli intelligence, the publication writes with reference to Pakhaluk himself.

The “Project” established the names of 20 teachers of leading universities who opposed the war and were dismissed.

At the same time, according to former professor of the Higher School of Economics Konstantin Sonin, at least 150 teachers left the university. 60% of employees resigned from the Institute of Humanities, Historical and Theoretical Studies of HSE.

Often, universities don’t just fire teachers, but also cut entire departments and university programs, and editors of scientific journals remove the authorship of departed scientists in published articles, the publication notes.