On June 10, the State Duma granted the FSB the right to interfere in the work of scientific organizations and universities to "prevent the leakage of secret information abroad," reported the publication T-Invariant*. The corresponding bill was adopted immediately in the second and third readings. According to the document, Russian scientists will now have to coordinate interactions with foreigners. The Ministry of Education and Science will be tasked with keeping records of international cooperation agreements. The FSB will oversee the process.
According to the amendments, all universities and research institutes, as well as other "subjects of scientific, scientific-technical, and innovative activities," both state and private, are required to provide information about all "planned works" involving any participation of foreign citizens and organizations. Russian legal entities, whose founders are foreigners or foreign organizations, must also do this.
This information will need to be uploaded into a unified state information system for accounting scientific research, experimental design, and technological works of a civil nature, so that intelligence agency staff can assess planned international scientific contacts for national security threats. This also applies to cooperation without "financial obligations from Russian scientific organizations."
Representatives of the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" (the leading scientific organization for projects involving international cooperation) and the Russian Academy of Sciences did not present any objections to the bill. The developed document "aligns with the promotion of national interests and the achievements of national science on the international stage," stated the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Gennady Krasnikov.
Scientists interviewed by T-Invariant noted that the law is formulated too vaguely, which could provoke a new wave of persecution in the scientific community, as was the case, for example, with specialists working on hypersonics. The need to coordinate all international contacts with the FSB "will only increase the sense of fear," warned economist and visiting researcher at the Davis Center at Harvard University, Andrey Yakovlev. "The number of foreign publications will drop significantly. People themselves will not want to have scientific ties with foreigners," he believes.
As the publication notes, in almost all cases of treason and state secrets involving scientists, one of the main problems is that the contacts of the accused with foreign partners occurred with the permission of special expert commissions that operate within scientific organizations, and include scientific staff. Theoretically, these commissions are responsible for the fact that materials, which the FSB considered secret, ended up in the public domain. At the same time, the FSB has never accused the expert commissions of "aiding traitors to the motherland," and has ignored their opinion when initiating criminal cases, despite the fact that scientists acted in compliance with all rules. Now the FSB will directly control scientists.
* Recognized in Russia as a "foreign agent."