How the invasion of Ukraine is affecting Russian expat researchers

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian expatriate researchers and students living in the West had a judgement call to make — should they publicly condemn the war (as many of them did) and risk repercussions for their families back home? Or should they stay silent and risk seeming as if they condone Russia’s invasion?

Now, long after making that decision, some Russian students and junior researchers are thinking hard about whether they can maintain their careers abroad amid anti-Russian sentiment and the effect of government sanctions.

Two years ago, Alisa Iakupova claimed that one of her friends was rejected from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, UK, because she was Russian. Her post about it on Twitter (now X), which has now been deleted, went viral. At the time, the institute, which is now called the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute, said that there had been an initial misunderstanding and apologized for any distress caused. It offered the rejected student a place, but they declined and went to study at the Medical University of Vienna instead. “I decided to try and help other people in this situation,” says Iakupova, a PhD student at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin.

Since then, she and a few other Russian researchers in Europe have been running an informal community support group, made up of about 40 volunteers, on the messenger tools WhatsApp and Telegram to help Russian researchers navigate similar academic rejections.

Some of the volunteers have spoken to university administrators to get more information about the reasons for the rejections and others have been engaging with journalists and the media to increase awareness of the issue.

Iakupova, who is originally from Ulyanovsk, which is roughly a 13-hour train ride from Moscow — isn’t oblivious. She knows that Ukrainian researchers have had it worse than their Russian counterparts and many people told her so on Twitter. “That’s why I feel bad complaining about these rejections,” she says (see ‘Danger and disruption’).

There isn’t much to be gained from limiting the careers of individual Russian scientists, argues Alexander Kabanov, director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kabanov, who is also treasurer and chief executive of the Russian–American Science Association, adds: “Everyone realizes the invasion was a tragedy for Ukraine and for science, but people are quite concerned about what is going on and are aware that individual Russians shouldn’t be blamed.”

Anastasiia Budaeva sent PhD applications to two laboratories at the University of Helsinki in March 2023, but she was declined by both. “The two refusals were based on the fact that I am from Russia,” she says.

Budaeva kept screenshots of the rejection e-mails and the reasons for refusal are clear. “Your CV is interesting in the context of our projects and under different circumstances, I could see you certainly as a good candidate for a PhD within our group,” reads one seen by Nature’s careers editors. It continues: “However, I am afraid that while the brutal invasion and senseless bombing and killing carried out by the government of your country, willing countrymen as well as private military bandits, this will not be a viable option for you, as we currently cannot hire Russian nationals still residing in Russia at this point, if only because you would not be able to get a visa to Finland.” The e-mail concludes by encouraging her to get back in touch “once Russia leaves Ukraine and peace is restored”.

Hiring in science

The confusion around admitting Russian citizens has since been clarified, says Robert Luxenhofer, a chemist at the University of Helsinki. “There was indeed a period of uncertainty shortly after the war began,” he adds. “During that time, I was advised by a senior colleague that we might not want to accept Russian nationals residing in Russia due to evolving sanctions and restrictions. Regrettably, this advice was based on a misunderstanding and was incorrect. The university continues to enrol Russian doctoral candidates.”

The clarification didn’t come in time for Budaeva, who is now a PhD student at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy.