Russia’s President Putin Is Named as President of the Board of the Russian Academy of Sciences

In a measure to bring the role of science further into a commanding role of the Russian economy, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been named to head the Board of Trustees of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). During the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Western countries’ ostensible “support” for Russian science, the role of the Russian Academy and science as a motive force of the Soviet economy were seriously undermined, with many Russian scientists moving to the West. Russia is now turning back to the system that had existed in the Soviet Union (with obvious differences), in which science was the handmaiden of government, allowing the country to quickly revive from the damage of the Second World War. The Russian Academy of Sciences is now reorganizing, in line with the original goal of its founder, Peter the Great (1672-1725), to become the most important entity in that structure, now apparently only subordinate to the head of state.