“What should we do What about our Russian colleagues? asked the senior scientist in the audience. It’s early summer, and it’s 100 degrees in Chicago. I’m giving a keynote address at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), America’s premier particle physics research facility and my former workplace. My presentation focused on the Asian-American experience and the impact of deteriorating U.S.-China relations on science, but for many in the auditorium, the urgency of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was more pressing.
Days after the conflict began on February 24, CERN — a longtime partner of Fermilab — halted all new collaborations with Russian and Belarusian institutions and individuals. The group announced in June that it intends to sever ties with the two countries once the current cooperation agreement expires in 2024. Other international organizations have taken similar or more drastic action. The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of eight Arctic nations, suspended work in March and resumed limited research this summer without Russia in what could be a devastating setback for climate science . The European Space Agency has terminated cooperation with Russia to ground Europe’s first Mars probe, which is expected to board a Russian rocket to the red planet later this year. For a moment, the International Space Station appeared to be able to withstand a seismic event on Earth. That hope was dashed in late July, when the head of the Russian space agency announced that his country would withdraw from the project in 2024.
From Earth’s ice caps to the edge of space, sharp war knives have cleaved academic alliances that have been fractured under the pandemic and geopolitical pressure, exposing a searing question that is difficult to answer. In my conversations with friends and colleagues in the US and Europe, I felt a sense of collective frustration that bordered on helplessness.Everyone regrets the invasion and agrees it was necessary something Helping Ukraine and keeping everything normal in the face of such a disaster is morally untenable. But beyond making statements and offering aid, what specific actions can the academic and scientific community take against Russia?
Many told me the decision was out of their hands: “It’s politics.” Labs and their personnel must comply with government sanctions and funding agency regulations, some of which prohibit collaboration with colleagues in Russia or endorsement in co-authored papers Russian institutions. Some lamented the unfair exclusion of Russian scientists who did not actively support the invasion. A scientist who grew up in the former Soviet Union before moving to the West has made a compelling argument that people in democracies should not help advance science in authoritarian regimes. It only strengthens dictators who use technology for destructive purposes. The scientist has not visited his country of birth for years and urged all his Chinese students never to return to China.
Thousands of scientists, science journalists and students in Russia, and many more in the Russian diaspora, signed an open letter condemning the conflict. Among those jailed for objecting was politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, whose father was known for refusing formal employment in Soviet Russia because of his refusal to accept a totalitarian regime. These brave acts ignited hope in the long night of war and oppression; they also shattered the illusion that ordinary people were not responsible for the actions of the state. To deny responsibility is to deny agency. In an unjust world, compromise is often a condition of survival.
The different perceptions of Western scientists about their Russian counterparts—relying on official guidelines, pretending that the Russian people are powerless, or sparking complete estrangement—all stem from a common stance: the innocence of the bystander. While German cities are powered by Russian gas, Swiss banks are safe havens for Putin cronies, and ostensibly democratic governments use technology to cause harm, the bombs, prisons and purges are blamed on an abstract state and carried out in foreign countries, including Many armed conflicts initiated by the United States. Insistence of innocence prevents a clear understanding of overlapping systems of violence and injustice that are never limited to one war, one country, or one model of governance. As the world divides along political divides and academia finds itself on a fault line, how we see and respond to designated others is ultimately up to us: who we are, where we stand, and what future we are fighting for.
