Tens of thousands of different sanctions are imposed on Russia - several times more than to North Korea or Iran. But some areas even avid Russophobes - supporters of sanctions bypass, because how the world perceives Russia, myths about the “great Russian culture” and no less “great Russian science” that cannot be touched under any circumstances.. And Russian propaganda makes a lot of effort to support them.

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Usually, telling about the greatness of Russian science, you will be reminded of Mendeleev and other lomonosos. Although what do they have to do with Russia of the 21st century? But directly modern Russian science concerns the following facts:.

The share of the Nobel laureates with affiliation in the Russian Federation does not exceed 1% (this is six people), and then mainly thanks to Soviet scientists. At the same time, a third of them fall on Nobel Prizes of the World (as ironically);

According to SCOPUS, only 20% of Russian publications were made in the magazines of the first tenant, that is, the most authoritative and most cited. At the same time, 60% of such publications were published in poor -quality magazines of the lowest third and fourth apartment;

In 2023, the list of highly focused scientists of the world totaled 6835 researchers from 64 countries. Of these, 2542 - from the United States, 1350 - from China, 562 - from Great Britain, 333 - from Germany and 298 - from Australia - from Australia. In Russia there were eight (yes, only eight) highly socialist researchers. This is 318 times less than in the USA, or 0.1% of the total number.

That is, "

Actually, we decided to demonstrate this on the example of editorial councils of Russian magazines. In the summer of 2024, we conducted a study by the Potemkin Village of Russian Science: Fictive editorial councils of magazines, which are actively involved in the international academic sphere (published by international publishers and/or indexed by leading databases such as Scopus and Web of Science).

About 800 Russian magazines are now indexed in Scopus, up to 500 in WOS, and Springer's one publishing house has more than 200 such magazines. As you can see, the war did not prevent the presence of Russian science in the international scientific environment, because sanctions against science are taboos.

We selected 140 magazines with the largest international representation in editorial councils. We managed to distinguish 709 scientists - international members of the editorial collegies of Russian magazines.

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We have identified them by OSINT. We searched for each specific person in scientific bases and social networks, on the sites of their employers, etc.. We were interested, in fact, one parameter - email address. Further, we sent personal letters to it with the question of whether the information is true about their presence in the editorial council of a magazine. And if so, does the scientist plan to continue such cooperation. In total, we sent 709 letters and received 148 answers to them, that is, 20%. That is not so bad, given the scrupulousness of the issue and the fact that people actually wrote to a foreign scientist personally, persons who were personally unfamiliar to them. In our letters, we immediately noted who we. For example, they wrote: "

The geography of our requests can be seen on an interactive research map.

. So, the classic of the genre is " Below is a translation of a fragment of writing from one of these scientists:.

“I have long (since 2007) in retirement in the status of an honorary professor and now I have been living in a house for people of advanced age. Those several times when I was addressed in connection with this position (a member of the editorial council. - Aut. ), ended with nothing, so it makes no sense that my name is used as evidence of active involvement in the magazine. I prefer that I be considered detached from this cooperation... under my current personal and medical circumstances "

Other scientists, whose names and surnames use editorial councils of Russian magazines for reputation purposes, retired in 2009 (“I retired in 2009 and completed editorial activities in the journal“... ”in 2010); In 2019 (“This is the first time I learned that I am part of the editorial council of the magazine“... ”, but I have never been asked about it, and I would not agree in any case”) and in 2022 (“Unfortunately. since 2022 has not been working at our institute, since he retired. As far as we know, he does not maintain relations with the magazine that interests you "

As you can see, the percentage of "

To each of the active research on the day of the study of scientists, we sent letters with the question: whether information about his/its membership corresponds to reality?

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We illustrate with a specific example. We sent letters to the "

The screenshot below is their answer.

. Meanwhile, on the publication website, they, as they were active members of the editorial board of the magazine, are present as of February 2025 (see. screenshot below).

. Conditionally they can be divided into two groups. The first is those who formally part of the editorial council of magazines, but knew about their membership in the editorial council (although they did not fulfill the tasks inherent in members of the editorial offices, for example, did not review articles). And the second group - those who did not even know that his/her name was on the list of editorial members.

An example of the formal performance of duties is the answer “Thank you for reminding me that I am still affiliated with the editorial council of the magazine“... ”. Although I did not receive any work/review from them for the last two or more years "

A special case is the neglect of the opinion of a member of the editorial council: “In 2015, I“ inherited ”membership in the editorial council when I headed the laboratory. After processing two ideas, I pointed out their low quality and the fact that I would not want to complete tasks as a member of the editorial council. Since then they have not sent any ideas to me. Therefore, I was surprised to learn that the magazine still celebrates me as an editor, although I refused my duties almost ten years ago "

What is characteristic, among these 100 scientists, which are in the editorial offices, there are those who were included in the editorial council at all without their knowledge (it turns out, it can be done).

An example of the inclusion of scientists without their consent is the answers of our other respondents: “I am not a member of the editorial council of the magazine. I was asked more than ten years ago, but I said: \; “I have never been part of this magazine. A year ago I was invited to the editorial council, but I did not think that it would actually happen. My name should not be there "

In general, information about membership in the editorial board of Russian magazines was a surprise to 45 of 100 respondents. They did not know either about the existence of such a magazine, or about their belonging to it.

Below a few fragments of letters from such scientists.

“Firstly, I never gave it (membership. - Aut. ) consent, and secondly (and this is more important), I do not fully support Russian aggression and war in Ukraine. "

“I really did not know that I was a member of the editorial board of this magazine, or possibly forgot, because I never had any connections with him. I will send them information so that I would be expelled from the editorial board of the editorial board "

A striking example of the unauthorized use of the scientist is such an answer: “I have never agreed to be a member of the advisory council of the magazine“... ”and, as far as I remember, I was never asked about it. It looks like an unauthorized use of my name, against which I strongly object. I strongly object to any attempts to use my name in any political propaganda and demand that my name be immediately withdrawn from the list of names that are part of the advisory council. I strongly support the EU policy regarding sanctions that prohibit any commercial or political interaction with Russia, as well as the fact that Europe should help Ukraine protect itself from an unprovided attack from Russia and return its occupied territory ”.

According to the results of the newsletter and our communication, 89 scientists reported that they plan to withdraw from the editorial colleagues of Russian magazines or have already written letters about the exit from.

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Among many confirmations, it is worth citing as an example: “Thank you for your message. I was convinced by your arguments, so I left the advisory council \; “Given my complete detachment from“... ”, an unfavorable assessment of his current leadership and the lack of my contribution as a member of the editorial board, I will explore this issue and consider the opportunity to submit a request to delete my name. I thank you once again for raising this question "

Some scientists had to ask about their exit repeatedly: “I made a request for the withdrawal of any Russian magazines several times from the editorial councils”.

Thus, in a dry balance, we have: among scientists who responded to the request, only 22 continue to cooperate with the editorial board of Russian magazines. That is about 15%. If we take into account a number of scientists who could not (did not want to) give a clear answer, which means that the share of falsifications of the international component of the editorial councils of Russian magazines potentially reaches 70%.

An interesting fact. Of the 709 international members of the editorials of Russian magazines that we identified, 30 turned out to be Ukrainians. Three of them have already died, two retired (again “dead souls”). We received 15 answers from the rest: two learned about their participation in the editorial board from us, nine after our letters wrote a request to exclude them from the editorial board, four did this even earlier and did not maintain ties with magazines. Once again, we note that they all listed as actual members of the editorial councils at the time of request.

Thus, Russian magazines mislead readers about the composition of their editorial councils, that is, they violate the principles of academic respectability, which automatically takes them beyond the scope of the circle of academic inviolability.

We turned to international publishers and scientific databases to find out their position regarding the fictitious editorial councils of Russian magazines that they publish or index. General conclusion from their answers: international institutions do not plan to take any steps to eliminate and prevent such practice.

That's not all. There are not only false members of the editorial councils, but also Russian institutions that exaggerate the size of their international cooperation. Thus, an analysis of the plans of international cooperation for 2024 of the United Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna (POSOSSIA) shows a revaluation of the number of institutions that cooperate with it by 11.0–26.8% of 990 mentioned on its webcap. This institution even continues to declare cooperation with Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic, which ceased their membership and cooperation back in 2022.

So we actually wanted to prove/demonstrate? First of all, to refute the myth of “great Russian science” and show how and thanks to which this mythology is created. And most importantly, to show that Russian science is definitely not something inviolable, it does not play according to the rules, rather, on the contrary, it is engaged in direct fraud. And if so, then there should not be any sanctions taboo based on prejudices. Sanctions against Russian science are an important element of counteraction to the aggressor.

Ukraine, although after almost three years of full -scale invasion, should finally take a proactive position in the issue of sanctions against Russian science and promote this idea among the allies.

The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine should develop a strategy for combating Russia in a scientific environment, which should include as a list of key problems (for example, using the aggressor of science as an instrument of propaganda, as an element of a military machine, as a component of war support against Ukraine,. ) with a step -by -step plan for solving identified problems and preventing the emergence of new.

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The Ukrainian scientific community could play a more active role in countering the Russian presence in international science. You can start with the spread of this and other relevant information among foreign colleagues and ensure their support in this matter.

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