In December, a news item appeared that received very little attention. A Russian archaeologist, Alexander Butyagin, was arrested in Poland. To my knowledge, Butyagin lived and worked in St. Petersburg and was officially employed by the Hermitage, the city's most important museum.

Butyagin has long been involved in excavations in Crimea. Before 2014, he conducted digs there with the permission of the Ukrainian authorities; since 2014, however, he has done so without any authorization because for a Russian citizen, Crimea was considered part of Russia. The Ukrainian authorities did not see it that way and when Butyagin traveled to Poland, he was arrested at Ukraine's request and now faces possible extradition to Ukraine.

I am currently reading a book about the politicization of Russian archaeology and in that context several questions arose for me regarding the scandal surrounding Butyagin.

It is understandable that Russia's Foreign Ministry, led by spokesperson Maria Zakharova, came to Butyagin's defense, but a considerable outcry also emerged among the so-called "good Russians" in the diaspora. The arguments were similar: what was Butyagin guilty of, he had spent his entire life excavating in Crimea as an archaeologist, how else could he have completed his research?

The book on Russian archaeology shows that the field has always also served the state. In Russia, Moscow-based archaeologists working for the Russian Academy of Sciences are funded quite generously and for them it is important to prove that Russians lived across the entirety of Russia in ancient times. Thus, wherever in Russia or the former Soviet Union a Russian and especially a Moscow or St. Petersburg archaeologist may be working, the aim is always to find traces of Russians.

Two questions also arise regarding Butyagin's excavations in Crimea. Under Ukrainian law, he was there illegally and would therefore be subject to punishment. From a broader perspective, it would not be wrong to consider that Butyagin's activities may have been part of a wider effort to prove that Crimea is "historically Russian land." Similarly, archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences have sought to demonstrate that Russians once lived in Altai and Buryatia, located in southern Siberia, closer to the Mongolian border than to the Russian-populated regions of European Russia.

There is one thing that we here do not fully grasp: the extent to which Russian science is placed in the service of the state.

When Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, Russian scientific institutions initiated a voluntary purge, persecuting and dismissing individuals who did not support the war launched by President Vladimir Putin, which is still referred to in Russia as a "special military operation." Already in the first weeks of the war, more than one hundred Russian university rectors published a joint letter expressing support for both President Putin and his military campaign.

What am I trying to argue with this piece? In Russia, there is no such thing as "neutral" or "pure" science. Russian scholars fall into three categories. The majority are loyal and opportunistic researchers who are faithful to the state, the president and official policy. The second group consists of scholars who have left Russia because they do not agree with the direction in which the country's academic landscape is moving. And then there are those who find it difficult or impossible to leave; they keep their heads down and try not to attract attention.

Russian science is deployed to advance the goals of state policy. It must be understood, however, that this deployment operates both domestically and internationally. On this side of Russia's border, questions occasionally arise about Russian scholars appearing in Europe and how this should be viewed. The question itself is justified, as Russian scholars travel to countries such as Italy, France or Switzerland without any difficulty. But what is far more interesting is how Russian science functions within Russia itself.

I have observed this dynamic for several decades and can confirm that scholars in Moscow and St. Petersburg tend to be Great Russian nationalists. Not all of them, but those who receive state research funding and whose data is used by various officials. In one way or another, scholars affiliated with prestigious Russian institutions such as the Academy of Sciences tend to look down on non-Russians and on non-Russian regions within the Russian Federation.

Of course, they themselves do not realize that they represent a Great Russian colonialist perspective, but that does not change much. I have had discussions with Russian colleagues on this topic and it turned out that they genuinely believe that various regions joined Russia voluntarily over the course of history. When I suggested that perhaps we should instead speak of conquest, they panicked.

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