# Study on affiliation of temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation in the InspireHEP database

Tetiana Berger-Hrynova

► To cite this version:

Tetiana Berger-Hrynova. Study on affiliation of temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation in the InspireHEP database. CNRS. 2024. hal-04736559

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Submitted on 15 Oct 2024

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# Study on affiliation of temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation in the InspireHEP database

Tetiana Hryn'ova (LAPP/IN2P3/CNRS, France)

## Abstract

This study overviews over 70 affiliations of the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation in the inspireHEP database and traces their origin to the impostor institutes created by the Russian Federation on the occupied territories of Ukraine. Their scientific papers are published by the international publishers (IOP Publishing, Oxford University Press, Springer, edpScience, WorldScientific, MDPI, PoS/SISSA, Elsevier, IEEE, etc.) or databases (arXiv), allowing Russian state propaganda to spread within the international scientific community.

## Section 1. Introduction

Since 2014 the Russian Federation occupied and then illegally annexed multiple Ukrainian territories. Many Ukrainian scientific institutions on those territories moved to the regions under Ukrainian control. In the meantime the Russian scientific community used captured Ukrainian scientific infrastructure to create new entities with names similar to the original Ukrainian ones, profiting from their existing academic standing to infiltrate the international scientific community. In addition, existing institutions from the Russian Federation were encouraged to move or to open branches in the occupied territories to facilitate their integration into the Russian scientific community.

For over ten years now, these new entities published results of their research through major international publishers with authors' affiliations listing the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as belonging to Russia, in contravention to the [ISO 3166 standard](#) and [UN resolutions](#) regarding the designations of territories. Such publications are later used by propaganda inside Russia to argue that the international scientific community actually approves of the annexation of the occupied land.

This report investigates such occurrences in the InspireHEP database [https://inspirehep.net/) which is managed by the INSPIRE Collaboration uniting [CERN](#) (Switzerland), [DESY](#) (Germany), [Fermilab](#) (USA), [IHEP](#) (China) and [IN2P3](#) (France). The distribution of publications among the publishers for different searches detailed in sections below is shown in Table 1.
<table><caption>Table 1 Distribution by publisher of entries in the inspireHEP database affiliating Crimea, Simferopol and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation as for October 6, 2024.</caption><thead><tr><th>Publisher, Country</th><th>Crimea</th><th>Simferopol</th><th>Sevastopol</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Entries after 2014</td><td>105</td><td>16</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td>Associated with the Russian Federation</td><td>54 (51%)</td><td>12 (75%)</td><td>6 (86%)</td></tr><tr><td>IOP publishing, UK</td><td>16</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Oxford University Press, UK</td><td>13</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Springer, Germany</td><td>10</td><td>5</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>edpScience, France</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>WorldScientific, Singapore</td><td>4</td><td>3</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>MDPI, Switzerland</td><td>3</td><td>1</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>PoS/SISSA, Italy</td><td>2</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Elsevier, Netherlands</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>IEEE, USA</td><td></td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>arXiv (only), USA</td><td>54 (1)</td><td>12 (1)</td><td>6 (4)</td></tr></tbody></table>
## Section 2. Crimea

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Results of the search for (left) “crimea russia” and (right) “crimea Ukraine”. Images extracted on October 6, 2024.</figcaption></figure>

Between 2014 and October 6th 2024, there are 105 publications corresponding to “crimea” search criteria posted on inspireHEP. 54 of those papers (51.4%) affiliate the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation as shown in Figure 1.

The majority of those publications (47 out of 54) originate from Crimean Astrophysical Observatory [https://inspirehep.net/institutions/903970]. This observatory was stolen by the Russian Academy of Science from the National Academy of Science of Ukraine following the occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Another eight articles are from V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University, which impersonates the existing V.I. Vernadsky Taurida National University currently located in Kyiv [https://tnu.edu.ua/].

## Section 3. Simferopol

Between 2014 and October 6th 2024, there are 16 entries corresponding to “simferopol” search criteria posted on inspireHEP.

Twelve of them are from V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University which associates the Ukrainian city of Simferopol with the Russian Federation. V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University impersonates the existing V.I. Vernadsky Taurida National University currently located in Kyiv [https://tnu.edu.ua/].
## Section 4. Sevastopol

Between 2014 and October 6th 2024, there are 7 entries corresponding to "sevastopol" search criteria posted on inspireHEP. Six of them associate temporarily occupied Sevastopol to the Russian Federation.

Four of these come from Sevastopol State University, which was created by Russia in 2014 expropriating the material base of the following Ukrainian scientific and educational institutions: Sevastopol National Technical University, Sevastopol City Humanitarian University, Sevastopol National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry, Sevastopol Faculty of Maritime Transport and Sevastopol Maritime College of the Kyiv State Academy of Water Transport, Sevastopol branches of Odesa National Pedagogical University and Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade. It is subject to sanctions in Ukraine as well as its Russia-appointed, who allegedly oversees a re-education programme for Ukrainian children.

Another three come from the Institute of Natural and Technical Systems. This enterprise changed its registration for Crimea from Sochi-based Federal State Budgetary Science Enterprise the Institute of Natural and Technical Systems (INTS) back in 2014. It is currently under sanctions in Ukraine.

## Section 5. Alushta

Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (JINR, Russia) has owned a resort-hotel "Dubna" in temporarily occupied Alushta, Crimea, Ukraine since the Soviet Union days. It has been used to host scientific conferences throughout Russia's aggression against Ukraine. The proceedings of those events frequently affiliate Alushta to the Russian Federation. Two entries below have been corrected by the inspireHEP team in 2024 to affiliate Alushta to Crimea. They still come up in the searches for "alushta russia" as well as "alushta crimea", but not as "alushta ukraine":

- Proceedings, 27th Russian Particle Accelerator Conference, RuPAC2021 : Alushta, Crimea, 27 September-01 October 2021, https://inspirehep.net/literature/1956841

- I. N. Meshkov, Phys.Part.Nucl.Lett. 15 (2018) 7, 790-792, Part of Proceedings, 12th International Scientific Workshop in Memory of Professor V.P. Sarantsev: Problems of Colliders and Charged Particle Accelerators : Alushta, Crimea, September 3-8, 2017, https://inspirehep.net/literature/1711541 [due to an abstract from Springer]
## Section 6. Other searchers

Searches have also been performed for other occupied cities, such as Donetsk, Lugansk, Yalta, Kerch, Marioupol. All these listings yield negative results for the moment.

## Section 7. Summary

It is notable that all the affiliations of the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation in the inspireHEP database originate from the international publishers or databases (arXiv), as shown above. At present, science publishers and databases do not rush to exercise control over affiliations, behaving similarly to the leaders of Facebook, Twitter, etc., who initially refused to counter disinformation on their platforms. Although most of them are well aware of the issue.

For example, the IOP Publishing, in *at least one* (but not all) of the articles listed above, adds the following statement: ‘While the AAS journals adhere to and respect UN resolutions regarding the designations of territories (available at http://www.un.org/press/en), it is our policy to use the affiliations provided by our authors on published articles.”

In addition, the international publishing market is open to journals originating from institutes based in the Russian Federation. Springer Nature/Pleiades Publishing/Allerton Press partnership is the leading global provider of English language journals of this kind, hosts over 200 English-language journals (emanating from over 270 russian-language journals) on the Springer website. AIP, IOP, Springer, edpScience published proceedings of conferences held in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Other publishers (e.g. edpScience, PoS/SISSA, AIP Publishing) have continued to publish not only individual contributions but also proceedings of conferences held in Russia even after the full scale invasion. Broader overview of the situation in the publishing industry can be found in [https://hal.science/hal-04669865/document].

## Section 8. What can be done?
On an individual level, scientists can choose to stop collaboration with the impostor organizations in the occupied territories of Ukraine, or at least insist that those territories are marked as Ukraine in the publications they participate in, review or publish.

To prevent the misuse of the scientific resources for spreading the Russian state propaganda, it is crucial that those impostor organizations, described above, become subject to sanctions from the EU, UK and USA suspending all scientific and technical cooperation and cultural exchanges and visits involving persons or groups officially sponsored by or representing them.

Such actions are needed to ensure that publishers review their policies that enable the promotion of the impostor organizations in the occupied territories of Ukraine, normalizing and legitimizing Russia's war of aggression.