On May 19, 2026, masked security forces raided the homes of staff members at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), detaining seven researchers for questioning and placing one under house arrest. The raid and house arrest appeared to be a continuation of an ongoing political controversy related to the institute’s management.
The raids stemmed from a criminal investigation into the funding of an academic project dedicated to translating Aristotle’s works into Russian. Formally titled “Aristotle’s Heritage,” the project received a 52 -million -ruble government contract to translate Aristotle’s complete works between 2018 and 2024. While volumes have not yet been published, over the course of the project, the researchers translated texts, hosted academic seminars, and published articles and translations of some of Aristotle’s individual treatises. Government officials approved regular progress reports.
During the project, the Russian government interfered in the operations of the Institute of Philosophy RAS. In late 2021, the Ministry of Education and Science bypassed standard election procedures to appoint Anatoly Chernyaev, a specialist in Russian philosophy, as head of the institute. The unilateral appointment of Chernyaev sparked protests among staff. Chernyaev was ousted a week later, replaced by Abdusalam Guseinov as acting director, and was officially dismissed from the institute two years later. The pro-government newspaper Zavtra noted that Chernyaev had previously criticized the institute because many of its researchers “had not supported” Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Early in the morning on May 19, 2026, security forces arrived at the homes of researchers involved in the project and confiscated their electronics, alleging fraud tied to funding discrepancies. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation brought several employees in for questioning, including the head of the Ancient Philosophy department, various research fellows, the deputy scientific secretary, and the institute’s acting director. Everyone was released later that day except for researcher Svetlana Mesyats, who was detained and placed under house arrest. Investigative officers also conducted a thorough search of the institute’s headquarters.
According to a source cited by the independent media outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe, investigators alleged the project was “fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale.” Authorities claimed that the submitted reports either did not exist in the specified format or were unrelated to Aristotle’s work. Additionally, investigators accused the institute of “double funding,” accounting for the same publication across multiple years—alternative sources suggested such mistakes may have resulted from the complex reporting system and the large number of documents involved.
Yulia Sineokaia, the exiled former deputy director of Institute of Philosophy RAS, strongly denounced the charges. She maintained that six years was an unrealistic timeframe to produce a complete set of annotated translations, asserting that the criminal case is entirely politically motivated.
Scholars at Risk is concerned about the filing of a criminal case and the arrest of a scholar in apparent retaliation for the peaceful exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and assembly—conduct that is expressly protected by international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In addition to the harm to the immediate victim, such incidents have a chilling effect on academic freedom and other related higher education values.
Sources:
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/05/22/siloviki-prishli-v-institut-filosofii-ran-iz-za-perevoda-aristotelia-na-kotoryi-vydelili-52-mln-rublei-rukovoditel-proekta-ushel-v-bessrochnyi-otpusk-v-den-obyskov-news
https://t-invariant.org/2026/05/targeting-aristotle-the-philosophers-case-started-over-economics-but-will-end-in-politics/
https://zona.media/news/2026/05/22/arist
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/05/22/russia-s-institute-of-philosophy-raided-over-fraud-case-tied-to-aristotle-translation-project-the-institute-had-previously-been-accused-of-disloyalty-to-the-kremlin
https://theins.press/en/news/292891
https://eng.iphras.ru/mesyats.htm