Velvet Terror: How and why scholars are being persecuted in Russia

The blanket intimidation technique

In early June, the Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on the 'exposure of espionage and subversive activities' by the British-based Oxford Russia Fund and claimed to have uncovered instances of collaboration with the fund by university lecturers in the Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tomsk regions. The FSB alleges that university staff, acting on the fund’s instructions, distributed literature promoting support for sexual minorities and LGBT values, and gathered information about the 'development of the domestic political and socio-economic situation in the country during the special operation in Ukraine.' Fifteen individuals received official warnings against cooperating with undesirable organisations or engaging in actions that could be interpreted as 'covert collaboration with a foreign state or an international or foreign organisation.'

The Oxford Russia Fund was designated an 'undesirable' organisation back in 2021 as an affiliate of the Khodorkovsky Foundation, and at that time announced the closure of its Russia-related programmes. The accusations appear entirely fabricated. It is difficult to imagine lecturers at four provincial universities distributing LGBT literature under current conditions. According to an interview with Dmitry Ilyin, Vice-Rector of Volgograd State University, published by the FSB as ‘evidence’, university staff attended a seminar organised by the fund in 2017. Apparently, information obtained about the seminar’s participants was used by the FSB to construct the 'lecturers’ case'. The lack of any actual offence is further suggested by the fact that all those accused were released, with only one lecturer facing administrative proceedings.

It is clear that the purpose of this FSB information operation is to intimidate the academic community. Over the course of the war, dozens of foreign organisations that had previously collaborated with hundreds of Russian scholars and university lecturers have been declared 'undesirable.' (The list of 'undesirable' organisations, which comprised 50 entries prior to 2022, has grown by 186 more during the war.) Now, all of them potentially fall under threat – or, at the very least, are meant to feel that way.

It is no coincidence that the FSB's statement also mentions Article 275.1 of the Criminal Code (‘Cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state, international or foreign organisation’). This is a broad-ranging ‘espionage’ article which does not require proof of having transferred specific information constituting state secrets. In June 2024, Sibir.Realii reported the sentencing of Anton Klimkin, a researcher at the V.E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics, who was charged under this article. After a lengthy period in pre-trial detention, Klimkin, on the advice of his lawyer, pleaded guilty and received two and a half years in a penal colony, the minimum sentence. The scientist did not have access to state secrets; he was prosecuted for taking part in a Russian-Chinese scientific project that had taken place a decade earlier and had been under FSB supervision at the time. The legal community viewed Klimkin’s case as a 'trial run' for judicial practice under this article.

Such repressions can be described as a technique of 'blanket intimidation'. The complete lack of factual substance in these model cases is compensated for by the leniency of the sentences; however, the potential threat extends to a very broad circle of individuals. Courts will likely go on to rubber-stamp similar verdicts, using Klimkin’s case as a precedent. Potential targets of such prosecutions could number in the hundreds or even thousands. And although the use of these repressive patterns will likely be moderate and systematic, a significant part of the academic and teaching community will feel the threat.

Repression below the radar: the submerged part of the iceberg

Getting an accurate picture of repression and repressiveness in scholarship and higher education is no easy task. A joint project by the publication T-invariant and the CISRUS centre is systematically collecting data on such repression.

Their database currently includes 114 entries, 20 of which are organisations, and 94 individuals. However, some of these recorded repressions date back to before the war, and some individuals, having left Russia, are now engaged in active public life abroad and are being persecuted more in that context than as scholars. In reality, we are talking about a few dozen wartime 'cases', yet this is only the tip of the iceberg, as such a list does not reflect the current level of repression in Russian academia. According to figures from OVD-Info, their database of politically motivated repressions contains references to 135 lecturers (presumably university-level), as well as 77 administrative cases against educators for 'discrediting the army'.

While genuine repressions in the form of criminal or even administrative cases in the academic sphere remain rare, in practice the main instruments of pressure on scholars are dismissals, non-renewal of contracts, the withdrawal or reduction of research funding, removal from teaching posts, and so on. Many scholars choose not to go public: remaining in Russia, they are forced to seek new employment, often at a lower rank, and in such cases, media attention would only do them harm.

When speaking of this kind of 'below-the-radar' pressure, it is important to note that over the past three years, a significant wave of 'soft repression' (dismissals, demotions, removal of research funding) has been linked to an open letter by Russian academics opposing the invasion of Ukraine – a letter that, within two years, gathered nearly 8,500 signatures from scholars of Russian origin around the world, making it the largest public anti-war statement by any single professional group. Shortly after the letter was published, FSB officers began summoning signatories for 'conversations', a process that was particularly intense in the provinces. T-invariant described the experience of one non-Moscow research institute where many staff members signed the letter in the early days of the invasion: 'The FSB came to speak with everyone, then there were administrative court cases,' participants said, although all of the cases were eventually dropped or ended in minor penalties.

That said, the full picture of the consequences in the form of delayed administrative pressure on signatories remains unknown. But it is beyond doubt that dozens of people have suffered in one way or another for their words, views, and participation in resistance during the early stages of the war. To a large extent, the severity of these consequences depends on the behaviour of academic and institutional leadership, but in almost every case, the price of mitigation is silence. There are, however, opposing examples, where leadership has shown full compliance with the demands of the security services. For instance, 'blanket' dismissals at St Petersburg State University began after the appointment in September 2023 of Oleg Shaidulin, former head of the political division of the FSB’s Centre 'E' in St Petersburg, as the university’s Deputy Vice-Rector.

In general, the dynamics of such pressure on scholars and lecturers, as was partly the case in Soviet times, depend on the relationship between the leadership of academic and educational institutions and the FSB officials who oversee them. The actions of the latter, in turn, are shaped by the course of repressive campaigns carried out under orders from their superiors. In this respect, the case of the Oxford Russia Fund, described earlier, is concerning not so much because it could lead to a wave of criminal and administrative cases based on contacts with foreign institutions, but because it creates new avenues for 'quiet' pressure on the academic sphere, pushing university leadership to remove 'unreliable' individuals from management posts or dismiss them altogether.

For the same reason, the academic community was deeply disturbed by the case of Oleg Kabov, a world-renowned physicist and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who had never been noted for political activism. Kabov had worked for many years at the Free University of Brussels before returning to Russia in 2013. In 2022, he was arrested on charges of fraud. According to investigators, in 2014 Kabov received a grant from the Ministry of Science to create a prototype cooling unit, which he allegedly failed to deliver, instead falsifying the project report. However, the Ministry accepted the work, and the experimental findings were published in international journals. While Olga Orlova, editor-in-chief of T-invariant, believes the case was driven by personal revenge from a former colleague now employed by the FSB, it nonetheless sets a dangerous precedent: namely, that an FSB agent’s alternate assessment of scholarly work could form the basis of a criminal prosecution. That a report on an academic project, submitted and accepted five years ago, has now become grounds for criminal charges is, Orlova notes, a worrying development. As a result, this precedent further shifts the balance of power in favour of the FSB in its dealings with academic institutions and researchers, while also opening the door to systemic corruption. According to Orlova, Kabov’s case is not unique, merely the most high-profile (in February this year, Kabov received a five-year suspended sentence without restriction of liberty, and now the physicist, who will turn 70 next year, will be able to continue his scientific work; however, the prosecutor's office wants to appeal this decision).

Thus, when examining the ‘tip of the iceberg’ – that is, the direct criminal and administrative persecution of scholars – one must remember that precedent-setting cases serve as instruments for strengthening security services’ control over scholarship and triggering waves of broader, quieter repression.

Under the general umbrella of an ‘external threat’

Among the persecuted academics listed in T-invariant’s database are one full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (the historian Yuri Pivovarov), six corresponding members, 19 holders of doctoral degrees, and 27 PhD-level candidates. Forty-one individuals are currently abroad (in many cases, having left under threat of prosecution), and at least 25 are in detention. In total, 41 have received criminal sentences, and 31 have faced administrative penalties. Four criminal convictions have resulted in sentences ranging from 12 to 20 years, and a further 13 from 2.5 to 8 years.

There are two main lines of persecution of scholars: charges of espionage and 'cooperation' with foreign organisations, and the targeting of political views. More than half of the imprisoned scholars listed in T-invariant’s database have been charged with treason; a sign of the increasingly harsh application of 'espionage' laws. While from 1997 to 2021 only 170 people were convicted under espionage and treason articles, in the three years from 2022 to 2024 alone, that number rose to 536 (→ Re:Russia: Repression in a New Form). Notably, the majority of treason cases involving scientists relate to the so-called 'hypersonic case'.

The history of prosecuting scholars for espionage and disclosure of state secrets runs deep. The first major cases of this type date back to the mid-2000s: those of Igor Sutyagin from the Institute for the USA and Canada Studies (2004) and physicist Valentin Danilov (2004). The fundamental issue with such cases is that the court proceedings are, by definition, closed – making independent assessment of the prosecution’s arguments virtually impossible. Yet, in most of these cases, the charges are based on entirely open academic contacts with foreign colleagues and publications in scientific journals.

The 'hypersonic case' became the first collective prosecution of 'scientist-spies'. Just three months after President Putin announced in his March 2018 address to the Federal Assembly that Russia possessed 'unparalleled' hypersonic missiles (referring to the Avangard and Kinzhal systems), the FSB arrested at least 12 scientists on charges of treason (three of whom died during the investigation). One possible background factor was the 2019 Chinese test of a hypersonic missile that experts believe bore a strong resemblance to the Russian Zircon (as reported by Military Watch in spring 2019). However, other experts note that almost all of the individuals involved in the case also participated in projects under the European Union's FP7 programme (TransHyBeriAN, a space research grant programme).

In any case, as an investigation by the BBC Russian Service established, Putin exhibits a kind of fixation on the issue of hypersonic weapons: he first mentioned Russian developments in this area as early as 2005 and has since referred to them publicly at least 70 times. In his 2018 speech, Putin dedicated an emotional and extended tribute to the missile developers, whom he described as 'true heroes of our time.' At the same time, as repeatedly pointed out by experts and defence lawyers, the accused individuals are theoretical physicists who had no involvement in missile development whatsoever. The alleged transmission of state secrets involves participation in academic conferences and open publications in academic journals. Regardless, the logic behind the case, in which the FSB, with maniacal persistence, transformed ordinary scholarly interactions into a full-fledged espionage conspiracy, hinges on the notion that the 'window' through which secret military technologies leak is the uncontrolled international engagement of Russian scholars and their participation in global academic cooperation. This interpretation may have resonated with Putin not only because it aligns with the ideology and practices of the Soviet KGB, which sought total control over the 'international contacts' of Soviet scholars, but also because it fits the totalitarian myth of a 'fifth column', associated with the educated class and its opposition to autocracy.

Thus, espionage cases and the persecution of links with 'undesirable' organisations fall under a single ideological umbrella that connects the vulnerabilities of the regime almost exclusively to 'external influence' and 'external threat.' The supposed antidote is the establishment of comprehensive control over Russian academics’ foreign contacts. As a result, a systemic shift is underway: whereas the state once sought to develop academia as a resource-driven sector, it now treats it as a managed zone of risk and suspicion.

Political repression and the ‘sharashka’ model

The second major stream of formal criminal and administrative proceedings against academics consists of prosecutions for expressing anti-war and anti-regime views. The T-Invariant database lists 52 such politically motivated cases (19 criminal and 33 administrative). The nature of these cases and the penalties imposed by courts vary significantly depending on the perceived 'offence.' Even distant associations with Alexei Navalny’s organisations may result in 'extremism' charges; expressions of sympathy for Ukraine may be classed as 'justifying terrorism'; and anti-war statements may be punished as 'discrediting the Russian army.' That said, scholars are not a particularly distinct group in this category of repression. Within the wider surge of such prosecutions (now numbering over two thousand in the past three years) scientists and university lecturers appear, if anything, underrepresented. This may partly be due to their greater capacity to choose the strategy of emigration.

While T-Invariant has documented 23 cases of scholars being declared 'foreign agents,' this, too, remains a relatively rare form of persecution for academics. Considering that the overall list of 'foreign agents' now exceeds one thousand entries, the proportion of scientists (even under T-Invariant’s somewhat broad definition of the term) is quite small. Furthermore, almost all academic 'foreign agents' are, in fact, public figures outspoken in their opposition to the regime – many of whom have left Russia. This reality, incidentally, reveals the logic behind the Russian authorities’ use of this repressive tool: it is primarily aimed at public personalities known for their dissent, intended to damage their reputations and restrict their access to audiences. As a result, journalists, writers, public intellectuals, actors, and musicians are far more frequently added to this list than scholars, who are typically less publicly visible.

However, in certain cases political persecution may have a more specific subtext. A telling example is the case of Sergei Abramov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and expert in supercomputer systems, who for many years headed the Institute for Programme Systems. In April 2023, Abramov was accused of financing extremism after allegedly donating a trivial amount to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (a transaction he denies), and was subsequently included in Rosfinmonitoring’s list of extremists and terrorists. Over the past two years, the now 68-year-old scientist has endured pre-trial detention, house arrest, and forced confinement in a psychiatric hospital. The legal process continues, and Abramov faces up to eight years in prison.

The case appears far from straightforward within the context of current repressive practices. Even if the transfers did take place, tens of thousands of people made donations to Navalny, and that alone should not warrant such severe persecution of such a prominent figure. The prosecution seems all the more puzzling given that, in recent years, as T-invariant points out, the Russian authorities have once again become preoccupied with the development of domestic supercomputers, in which Abramov is regarded as one of the key scientific figures. Under the 'Data Economy' programme, Putin demanded that the processing power of Russian supercomputers be increased tenfold by 2030 and pledged 700 billion roubles in funding for this initiative.

However, T-invariant's investigation also draws attention to another criminal case (in this instance, of an economic rather than political nature), initiated in 2019 against Vsevolod Opanasenko, the founder of T-Platforms, at the time the country’s leading supercomputer company. According to market insiders, the case was instigated by Rostec, the state corporation with which Opanasenko had collaborated and which allegedly sought to absorb his business. Although the case against Opanasenko has never been formally closed, he is now once again working in his field, albeit under the auspices of Rostec and, as market participants put it, 'behind the fence.' In this case, repressive tactics appear to serve the function of creating a kind of modern-day sharashka, notes the T-invariant report.

Between 'Brezhnev' and ‘Stalin’

Thus, repression against scientists and the academic community has taken on a multilayered structure. First, the ideology of an 'external threat' is expanding, leading to the creation of tools for controlling and persecuting those scholars who remain, along with any surviving international contacts. This strategy casts a shadow of suspicion over the most capable and connected part of Russia’s scientific community.

Second, the FSB’s supervisory powers over the scientific and economic activities of researchers are growing, particularly in terms of their oversight of grant reporting. This increases the dependence of academic institutions and researchers on their assigned 'curators' from the security services. Whereas such tactics were previously deployed only in targeted operations, such as the dismantling of the liberal Shaninka (Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences), they now form the basis for the FSB’s systemic dominance in the academic sphere.

Third, unlike in the late Soviet period, where vertical control operated through administrative mechanisms and criminal prosecution was the exception, the new repressive model frequently employs the threat of imprisonment. This effectively paralyses civil resistance within academic institutions and enables the 'curators' to pressure university and research institute leadership into informally purging their staff of the politically unreliable.

The point here is that, in the late Soviet model, the task of ideological control over science and higher education rested primarily with the Party structures, which shaped the methods of oversight accordingly. In today’s Putin-era system, these functions have been handed directly to repressive agencies and security services, who now bear responsibility for ideological security and the 'integrity' of academic knowledge. This institutional feature aligns current practices not so much with the late Soviet period, but with those of the Stalinist era, when the security services wielded far more powerful instruments and exercised dominance over civilian oversight bodies.