Russia’s scientific community is facing a catastrophic decline as repression, arrests, and brain drain cripple innovation and international collaboration. With key sectors devasted and critical talent fleeing, Putin’s miscalculations have isolated Russia and jeopardised its future technological competitiveness. 

In 2022, a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences was arrested on suspicion of treason. Dmitry Kolker was Head of the Laboratory of Quantum Optical Technologies of the Physics Department of Novosibirsk State University when he was accused of passing classified information. His alleged betrayal occurred during a lecture before a group of Chinese students. In attendance was an officer in the Federal Security Service.  

If found guilty, Kolker was facing a sentence of 20 years. However, he died while imprisoned in Moscow a few days following his arrest. At the time of his detention, the state was also prosecuting two other scientists at another branch of the Novosibirsk Academy of Sciences on unrelated charges.  

These are not aberrant cases. Nor are they insular activity confined to Novosibirsk. They are emblematic of the plight infecting scientific and academic circles across Russia. Frequent espionage and other assorted cases against researchers have devastated the praxis of international collaboration and all but crushed scientific development.  

Vladimir Marakhonov is a physicist who worked as a research fellow in Leningrad/Saint-Petersburg for 15 years. He left Russia for Finland in 2022. Marakhonov uses words such as “catastrophe” and “madness” to describe the environment in scientific research. In 2023, he said: “… in Russia, you are forced to shut up and sit quietly. Or speak out with extreme caution. Because they can arrest you and send you to prison… They can declare you a traitor with all the consequences.”  

The crackdown on perceived foreign agents and dissident scientists comes as Russia suffers from a brain drain of gigantesque proportions. Novaya Gazeta reports that as many as 2,500 scientists and researchers may have left Russia since 2022. However, last year the vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences posited an even more calamitous estimate. Valentin Parmon claimed in Interfax that Russia has lost approximately 50,000 scientists over the last five years. No other country has seen such a fall in the number of workers in the scientific field in that timeframe, he added. 

It is not just the fear of repression that is forcing Russian scientists to consider moving their careers abroad. Decisions about leaving also include a pragmatic calculation. Foreign sanctions and the isolation of Russian research institutes limit the very practice of science. State security imperatives not only restrict international collaboration and remote work, they hinder access to specialised equipment and thwart opportunity for publication. Scholars depend on international collaboration and conference papers to raise their profiles and fund their work. By contrast, Russian scientists are confined to domestic and various Asian outlets to cover their research while at the same time their careers are consigned to systemic stagnation in scientific development.  

Contrary to Vladimir Putin’s assurances of Russian economic autarchy, no sole country can create, organise, and maintain a scientific ecosystem in the global economy. There is no such thing as national science. The research and development infrastructure requires a constellation of researchers, laboratories, fabrication facilities, supply chains, and foreign partners. Breakthroughs always arise from some level of global interaction. Ironically, in Russia’s case, due to its increasing isolation, limited private sector initiative, and central dysfunctionality it has become increasingly dependent upon China. 

Further, effective experimental scientific work in such areas as nuclear physics and the semiconductor industry is very capital intensive. Semiconductors are integral to technological competitiveness, geopolitics, and economic prosperity. In this field, Russia has no domestic alternative that can match western standards. 

TSMC plans to invest $40 billion in its advanced semiconductor fabs in Arizona. Micron is investing $100 billion in a new facility in New York and will need to add at least 9,000 employees. Multiply these factors when imagining the effort to organise similar research infrastructures across the whole range of scientific fields.  

The biological science and healthcare sectors are so depleted that Russia has resorted to recruiting doctors from Africa (in meeting hiring criteria, candidates need not provide a diploma. A simple statement of qualifications will suffice.) Russia is also in dire need of skilled personnel in information technologies, but must compete with richer Middle East states to lure specialists from say, for instance, India. Yet, the sectors with the most serious labor shortfalls are agriculture and construction. 

The incursion into Ukraine comes at a time when Russia is facing a demographic catastrophe of epic scale. Since 2000, the Russian population has been negative or flat. Even before the start of the war, deaths in Russia outnumbered births by 1 million. As the conflict slogs on, serious labor shortages destabilise every sector.  

Putin’s flawed faith in threats of energy blackmail backfired. Rather than intimidating the global markets, the stratagem only resulted in further isolation. Launching an illegitimate war against a once leading trade partner and source of skilled labour might well be one of the greatest miscalculations of this century.  

The current stifling of intellectual freedom will inhibit advances in the technology sphere for years. Even if international sanctions are lifted and import substitution becomes a reality, the challenges will remain, as will the degradation of Russian society. Human capital losses in World War II, for example, persisted far longer than the effects of the destruction and costs to physical infrastructure.  

Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine bankrupted the scientific community of its most brilliant minds and put the future of Russia at risk. A top-down driven system has been put in an annealed condition that will endure. The best qualified scientists, researchers, and engineers have been driven from leadership positions and replaced by a generation of lesser technicians and careerists.  

In Russia’s scientific community, “the professionals find themselves out of the game,” said Vladimir Marakhonov. His summation of the state of research and development can apply across Russia. What began as a three-day folly, Putin has turned the conflict into crisis. Now, Russia might be awaiting an earthquake. 

For the past year, Jack Jarmon has been a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. He was USAID technical advisor for the Russian government. during its economic transition period in the mid 1990s. He has authored and co-authored five books, which are currently core texts for international and security studies programs in the US and abroad. He has taught international relation courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University and lectured at major universities and war colleges. 

This review is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.