For Russian humanities scholars, any ties to British NGOs have shifted from toxic to criminal. T-invariant has uncovered who became the first to face administrative charges for collaborating with the Oxford Russia Fund. Through the case of a Volgograd professor, the outlet reveals how public trials of philologists—those who “sounded the alarm too late”—are now orchestrated. The story features all the hallmarks of such prosecutions: a department head’s televised repentance on a federal channel and textbooks, published with NGO support, being symbolically dumped outside the British Embassy.

In June 2023, T-invariant published an interview with Mikhail Sokolov, a sociologist of education and science and a professor at the European University in St. Petersburg. Among other topics, the scholar suggested that the war would have little impact on the state of social sciences in Russia. Has his opinion changed two years later? What is happening to the social sciences today, and what lies ahead for them? These questions are now being discussed with Mikhail Sokolov by Sergei Erofeev, a sociologist at Rutgers University (USA) and president of RASA, the global association of Russian-speaking scholars.

The initial court hearings in the case of young physicist Artem Khoroshilov have revealed that, over two and a half years of persecution, FSB officers failed to coherently link their evidence to the charges of “terrorism and extremism.” The prosecution’s exhibits—a 20-year-old “Young Chemist” science kit and ammonium nitrate seized from the apartment of his retired mother—remain as tenuous as the case itself. T-invariant publishes the full transcript of Tamara Khoroshilova’s interrogation, discloses new details from this legally unprecedented and shockingly brutal prosecution, and traces the year-long surveillance of the scientist prior to his arrest.

Donald Trump’s executive order on biosecurity, issued on May 5, 2025, has shocked American scientists: pathogen research has been halted, and DNA and RNA synthesis now requires government approval. This directly threatens vaccine development, genomic research, and even routine medical tests. Geneticist Dmitry Pruss speaks to T-invariant editor Alexander Sergeev about the escalating crisis in U.S. biomedical science, draws parallels with the Soviet past, and explains why these trends are dangerous for the entire world.

Harvard University refused to obey the Trump administration and sued the officials. Why is the whole world watching this conflict? What is being demanded of the university? What is Harvard defending? What role did DEI policy and anti-Semitism play in the attack on academic freedom? T-invariant talked to Eugene Shakhnovich, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.

In 2015, the archives of the Max Planck Society—one of Germany’s and the world’s leading scientific organizations—revealed human brain specimens illegally obtained in the 1940s. In 2020, documents exposed how the Kiel Institute for the World Economy aided the Wehrmacht’s conquest of Europe. Then, in 2022, Humboldt University published a study detailing how its own researchers had helped plan war crimes. Why, eight decades after WWII and the fall of the Nazi regime, does German academia continue to unearth such horrors? Can one be complicit in crimes without pulling a trigger—simply by optimizing war economies, promoting pseudoscience, or mass-producing politically expedient research—all while claiming that “science is apolitical”? These questions are explored in an investigative report by Natalia Supyan, PhD in Economics and German studies specialist.

Russian scientists currently in Sweden are increasingly being denied permanent residence permits. And along with the refusal – a ban on entering the Schengen zone for a significant period of time. T-invariant talked to scientists who have been or could be affected by this measure and tried to understand what exactly worries the Swedish Migration Service.

Alexei Soldatov, a well-known scientist and entrepreneur, one of the founders of Runet, who was convicted in a case of abuse of power, has been sentenced to Ryazan region. In an interview with T-invariant, his son Andrei Soldatov, editor-in-chief of the website “Agentura.ru”, told what may be behind his father’s case, what FSB supervisors at large enterprises and universities are really doing, and why in Russia, despite the large number of convicted scientists and representatives of the IT-sphere, there are no sharashki 2.0.

A verdict is expected imminently for Sergei Abramov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). On March 25, he turned 68, but the last two years have been erased by the FSB: Abramov stands accused of financing extremism—specifically, seven donations totaling 7,000 rubles to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). The trial, now dragging on for nearly a year, has seen the scientist attempting to prove that the prosecution failed to establish who authorized the payments or their intended recipient. He has also challenged the validity of a linguistic analysis of his Facebook posts conducted by a bachelor’s-degree law graduate. Abramov faces up to eight years in prison, and his family fears he may not survive incarceration.