CERN said it will continue to cooperate with Russian scientists

GENEVA, March 22, Yuri ApreleffThe European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will continue to cooperate with Russian scientists, working in institutes not based in Russia, only the agreement with Russian institutes will not be renewed, said CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier.
Earlier, the official representative of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Arnaud Marsollier, said that CERN will cease cooperation with approximately 500 specialists with ties to Russia from November 30 this year. Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said that CERN’s decision to suspend cooperation with Russia is politicized and absolutely unacceptable; the military-political situation in the world should not undermine progress in the field of scientific research.

“The decision of the CERN member states concerns cooperation with Russian institutes, while relations with Russian scientists associated with CERN under other agreements will continue,” he said.

However, Marsollier did not answer the question of how many Russian scientists will be able to continue working with CERN and whether the agreement with Russian institutes could be renewed in the future, as well as under what conditions. He also did not answer the question of whether scientists at Russian institutes will be able to access the results of their experiments conducted before the expiration of the agreement after November 30.
Earlier, the head of the Kurchatov Institute, Mikhail Kovalchuk, called the termination of CERN’s cooperation with Russian scientists positive, noting that personnel are returning to the Russian Federation. For his part, Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Skobeltsyn Research Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University (NINP MSU) Mikhail Merkin said that Russian scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research will completely “hand over matters” to foreign colleagues by the end of November, but completely painlessly there will be no departure from them, since the scientific work used components created in the Russian Federation.