Russia-Ukraine war: How the conflict is impacting science collaborations between countries

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military for a 'military operation' in Ukraine on February 24, and fast forward over a month, Moscow has faced severe economic repercussions. But what has also been impacted is the country's scientific collaborations with western countries which have posed problems for the plans of both factions. Let us take a look at some major Russia has been isolated in the area of science.

2022 Mars mission

The blow of the impact was felt by arguably the most important planetary mission of this year- the 2022 ExoMars mission. Initiated jointly by Russia's space agency Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA), the mission was to launch the Rosalind Franklin rover with a Russian lander to Mars using a Russian Proton-M rocket in September. However, the ESA suspending the launch could push the mission as far as 2026 as the engineers would have to replace Russian equipment and look for an alternate rocket.

In an interview with Associated Press, ESA director, Josef Aschbacher said, "We need to untangle all this cooperation which we had, and this is a very complex process, a painful one I can also tell you. Dependency on each other, of course, creates also stability and, to a certain extent, trust. And this is something that we will lose, and we have lost now, through the invasion of Russia in Ukraine."

CERN ends cooperation with Russia

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which houses the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, announced to limit its cooperation with Russian research institutes. On March 8, the 23-membered lab CERN had stripped Russia of its observer status ahead of going on its third-ever run, as per AP. It is worth noting that nearly 7% of its 18,000-odd researchers from around the world are linked to Russian institutions and many Ukrainian scientists called for Russia's expulsion from the Geneva-based lab. Meanwhile, the researchers hunting for dark matter are hoping not to lose the more than 1,000 Russian scientists contributing to experiments at CERN. 

Concerns around France-based experimental fusion-power reactor 

Among the organisations where Russia has been isolated is the 35-nation ITER fusion-energy project in southern France. Called one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today, the ITER involves building the world's largest tokamak machine. It is a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars. What's concerning for the collaborators is that Russia is among seven founders sharing costs and results from the experiment and was supposed to ship a massive superconducting magnet awaiting testing in St. Petersburg.

In addition to these areas of collaboration, the west isolating Russia would also impact climate scientists who won't be able to determine the warming of the Arctic without Russian help. Last month, Moscow had even threatened that Russia ending cooperation with the west could cause problems even in outer space such as the crash of the International Space Station (ISS).

Image: NASA/AP