_Image: [IherPhoto](https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/russia-vs-ukraine-flag-on-cracked-wall-concept-of-royalty-free-image/1377348098), via Getty Images_
**Publishing Russian-affiliated papers from occupied territories amounts to misinformation, say Alex Plastun and Serhiy Kozmenko**
In 2013, Crimea was home to 20 branches of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. They included some of the country’s most prestigious scientific institutions, such as the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and the Marine Hydrophysical Institute in Sevastopol.
Following Russia’s annexation in 2014, most are now part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. What was once the National Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking in Yalta, for example, is now the All-Russian National Research Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking.
This should not be surprising. What is surprising, though, is that many international academic organisations continue to recognise these stolen institutions and the publications they produce, even as [Russia turns them into weapons in its war](https://www.businessperspectives.org/index.php/journals/problems-and-perspectives-in-management/issue-2-spec-issue-4/stolen-ukrainian-universities-an-invisible-russian-weapon).
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, most attention has focused on the physical damage to research and higher education institutions, and the effect on Ukrainian researchers. Russia’s efforts to appropriate academia in occupied territories such as Donetsk and Luhansk has passed largely unnoticed.
**False flags**
There is no single list of stolen Ukrainian universities and research institutions; the information is unofficial and fragmented. But from collating different sources, we believe that Russia has seized 289 higher education institutions, including universities, academies, institutes, branches, and faculties of universities and colleges.
This includes up to 20 universities in Crimea, more than 10 in Donetsk and around 10 in Luhansk, totalling hundreds of thousands of students. Many of these institutions now exist in two forms—one relocated to Ukrainian-held territory, one repurposed to serve Russia.
Researchers at institutions in occupied Ukraine continue to produce academic papers, using Russian affiliations. The majority of such publications are published in Russian journals by Russian publishers. But many are not—in 2023, nearly a third of the papers with problematic affiliations were published by international publishers, including major imprints such as Springer Nature and Elsevier.
Databases of the academic literature such as Scopus and Web of Science\* continue to include these papers, and academic social networks such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu continue to allow them to be posted.
In total, this adds up to thousands of cases where Ukrainian territories are marked as part of the Russian Federation and stolen Ukrainian universities are mentioned as authors’ actual affiliations.
**Sanctions blindspot**
Alongside this, dozens of journals produced at institutions in occupied territories continue to operate. This includes the appropriation of their archives, editorial boards and other intellectual assets.
Again, these journals continue to be listed in scholarly databases. The ISSN International Centre, which produces serial numbers for publications, has continued to register journals produced at Crimean universities and rebranded as Russian publications.
Since 2022, more than 20,000 different sanctions have been imposed on Russia. The academic sphere, however, remains relatively untouched.
It seems that publishers and other information providers are practising territorial and political neutrality—either out of a belief that science should remain above politics, or simply through an oversight.
**Serving the invasion**
But this is not how Russia sees it. It is using Ukrainian universities against Ukraine, making them tools to further its geopolitical agenda.
Universities in occupied territories have reoriented their teaching towards Russian values and viewpoints, training and socialising members of a new Russian society and providing personnel for institution-building in occupied territories. This includes textbooks describing the invasion as the “pre-emptive provision of Russia’s security”, deporting Ukrainian children for ‘re-education’ at stolen institutions, and providing practical support and fundraising for Russian troops.
They have also begun producing propaganda in support of Russia, and scholarship that seeks to justify the invasion and assimilate the Ukrainian population in occupied regions.
**Reputations at risk**
The international academic community should put pressure on publishers and others to review their handling of research from institutions and journals in occupied Ukraine and end their surely unwitting cooperation with Russia.
The International ISSN Centre should cancel the registration of stolen Ukrainian journals and media. International journals should stop accepting publications with problematic affiliations. And the Committee on Publication Ethics should issue guidance for journals, publishers and others on their approach to handling authors and research from stolen Ukrainian universities, facilities and journals.
For publishers and others to treat stolen Ukrainian universities, institutes and journals as Russian amounts to spreading misinformation and inadvertently legitimising the occupation. This puts at risk both their reputations and, given the high likelihood that many of the papers in question are unreliable, the integrity of the scholarly literature.
_Alex Plastun_ _is at Sumy State University, Ukraine. Serhiy Kozmenko is at Sumy National Agrarian University, Ukraine._
_\*Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate, which is the provider of Web of Science._