The rules are a reminder to Russian scientists of the trade-off they must make if they stay in Russia and take part in Putin’s nostalgic modernisation projectRussian President Vladimir Putin with Foreign Intelligence Service Director Mikhail Fradkov and Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov. The SVR - Russia's CIA - ran the spy operation. Picture: REUTERS
They require the Russians to inform the ministry in advance about meeting plans and, after the fact, about the content of the conversations. A scientist’s private meetings with foreign colleagues outside of working hours require permission from his or her research centre’s management. An especially absurd rule appears to require Russian research organisations to take away visiting foreign colleagues’ electronic devices, including watches.
Putin has set goals of this kind since 2012, when he returned to the presidency after a four-year hiatus. So far, though, the nation has been missing the targets. Much of the actual improvement in Russian research activity has been due to Russian organizations’ cooperation with funders from the US, Germany and other Western nations, a paper published last year by a group of Russian Academy of Sciences researchers showed. Kotyukov’s rules strike at the heart of that collaboration.
Not following Kremlin advice on vigilance can have nasty consequences. From time to time, Russian academics are imprisoned for allegedly handing over sensitive material to foreign funders and colleagues. Fradkov’s letter mentions one such case, that of physicist Viktor Kudryavtsev, charged with treason last year for work he did for a Belgian research institute. The work was part of a program funded by the EU, and it wasn’t classified at the time Kudryavtsev got involved in it.
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