The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences left for the academician – Newspaper Kommersant No. 173 (7374) of 09/20/2022

On Tuesday, a general meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences will be held, at which a new president of the academy will be elected. On Monday, the current head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, physicist Alexander Sergeyev, abruptly withdrew from the election race, saying that the campaign is taking place “under unprecedented conditions of psychological and even external administrative pressure.” According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, Gennady Krasnikov, general director of the Research Institute of Molecular Electronics, will most likely become his successor. However, there is a possibility that the elections will not take place if the academicians cannot gather the quorum necessary for the procedure. Members of the informal academic “July 1 Club” declared that “democracy is the most important principle of the RAS activity”, and the voting was “turned into a farce”. In turn, both candidates, Gennady Krasnikov and Dmitry Markovich, accused the club of trying to disrupt the election of the President of the Academy.

On Monday, the first day of the general meeting of members of the RAS was held, at which presidential candidates had to present their programs to colleagues. But the meeting began with a scandal: the current head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sergeev, announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy from the elections. He explained that the campaign is taking place “in unprecedented conditions” – candidates “are subjected to psychological and even external administrative pressure.” According to the current head, there has never been anything like this in the entire recent history of the academy. “In these difficult conditions, I thank the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences who support me,” said Mr. Sergeev. “I am sure that they are in the majority in this hall. However, the events of recent days are forcing me to withdraw my candidacy from the election of the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It’s a forced decision.” He added that he would not encourage his supporters to vote for any candidate.

Recall that Alexander Sergeev headed the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2017. Those elections did not take place on the first try. Vladimir Fortov, who served as president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and two other candidates withdrew, due to which the vote was postponed. After that, the State Duma changed the rules for electing the leadership of the academy. According to the new law, candidates for this post must be agreed with the government, and the head of the academy is approved by the president of Russia. After that, the government blocked two out of seven candidates without explanation; of the remaining winners was Mr. Sergeev.

In the 2022 elections, the government did not agree on the candidacy of the scientific director of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Robert Nigmatulin.

Several academicians suggested that the decision might have been made because of his age – Mr. Nigmatulin is 82 years old. As a result, three candidates remained: General Director of the Research Institute of Molecular Electronics Gennady Krasnikov, Director of the Institute of Thermal Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Markovich and Alexander Sergeev.

At the meeting on Monday, the reasons for the sudden withdrawal of Alexander Sergeev were practically not discussed. Only the general designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, Yuri Solomonov, said that he had previously supported Mr. Sergeev, because he was sure that the “leadership of the country” also supported the current head of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Unfortunately, after some time I received ambiguous information that the country’s leadership does not support Sergeyev’s candidacy,” he said. It is about the fate of the academy. In the end, I withdrew my consent.

All academicians interviewed by Kommersant say that Alexander Sergeev made the decision to withdraw from the election two or three days ago, and the Russian Academy of Sciences learned about it on Sunday afternoon.

However, there were no specifics – members of the academy were informed that “this is a necessary measure,” since “the election campaign was held with strong pressure and dirty stuff.”

“He wanted to show with all his might that he didn’t make this decision, that he was forced,” Academician Viktor Danilov-Danilyan comments on Mr. Sergeev’s statement. Academician Alexei Arbatov believes that since Mr. Sergeyev had to withdraw from the elections, it means that he confidently won them. “If the authorities persuaded him, then indirectly the RAS expressed distrust in this way,” he argues. “It turns out that the authorities do not expect that the academy can consciously choose the best of the proposed candidates.”

Earlier, Kommersant’s interlocutors said that Alexander Sergeyev and Gennady Krasnikov had approximately equal chances of winning. “However, over the past month, compromising evidence on Krasnikov has appeared in the media and Telegram channels, and Sergeyev’s headquarters has attracted more resources,” says Kommersant’s source in the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Perhaps the people who want Krasnikov for the presidency simply played it safe in this way.” Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Khokhlov said in his Telegram channel: if Alexander Sergeev had not withdrawn his candidacy, he would have been elected.

Several interlocutors of Kommersant in the Russian Academy of Sciences call Gennady Krasnikov “Mikhail Kovalchuk’s man” – the president of the Kurchatov Institute, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, brother of the shareholder of Rossiya Bank Yuri Kovalchuk. One of Kommersant’s interlocutors points out that the honorary president of the Kurchatov Institute, Yevgeny Velikhov, actively spoke out for Gennady Krasnikov and against Alexander Sergeyev. Gennady Krasnikov himself previously called this version a PR move of his opponents.

On Tuesday, the second part of the general meeting of members of the Russian Academy of Sciences is scheduled – academicians must vote for the future president of the academy. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, Gennady Krasnikov will most likely become the new head of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, the vote may not reach. On Monday, the informal academic community “July 1 Club” issued a statement, which spoke about “insulting interference of administrative bodies in elections”: “The most important principle of the activity of the Russian Academy of Sciences is democracy, and by no means a game of democracy. The club believes that in the current situation, voting has de facto been turned into a farce, participation in which would be humiliating for members of the RAS.”

After that, a member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Starodubov, called the call to “ignore the elections” a destructive position, “which can lead to unpredictable consequences”: “It is clear that a group of comrades acts on the most sore point – on the quorum. Today we have a group on the verge – 1081 people (present. – “Kommersant”), and we need (for the quorum. – “Kommersant”) 1005 people. However, one of the members of the club, Yefim Khazanov, told Kommersant that the statement did not call for a boycott of the elections: “With such an attitude (of the authorities to the elections in the Russian Academy of Sciences. – Kommersant), we believe that this is humiliating. But to participate or not – everyone decides for himself. We don’t call anyone and we haven’t called before.”

Interlocutors of “Kommersant” in the academy believe that the option in which the quorum cannot be collected is quite real.

“1,005 people are half of the entire staff of the academy,” explains one of them. “Most often, 1,100 members come, and the maximum was 1,200 people. There is a possibility that the call will still be accepted and 50 people will not come, and maybe more.” On this issue, the opinions of the academicians interviewed by Kommersant were divided. “If the elections do not take place, then they will conduct a second procedure within a year,” says one of them. “During this time, the president and the government will appoint their own candidate from among the members of the academy, and he may not suit everyone even more than Krasnikov.” “I hope that the quorum will not be reached,” another academician admits. This is simply unacceptable.”

On Monday at 20:55, both remaining candidates responded to the letter from the 1st of July Club. Gennady Krasnikov and Dmitry Markovich jointly stated that the club “is trying to provoke a violation by members of the Academy of Sciences of the statute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Article 31, paragraph ‘c’) and to disrupt the presidential election.” “Such statements not only damage the reputation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and lower its authority, but also lead to unpredictable consequences for the future of the academy,” Krasnikov and Markovich said. They urged “to fulfill your duty as a scientist and a member of the Academy of Sciences … by expressing your position by voting for one of the candidates.”

Anna Vasilyeva