
Political orders are fragile constructs. This is evident in the long history of imprisoned intellectuals: writers and scientists whose research, thoughts, and statements were considered threats to ‘public order’ or ‘national security.’ Consequently, there is also a long history of intellectuals fighting against socio-political conditions that directly or indirectly attack their mental health, dignity, and intellectual capacity – a problem that is exacerbated in prison. Dr. Oleg Maltsev, who was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on fabricated charges, has unwillingly become part of this tradition, as Olga Panchenko and Giorgi Vachnadze explain.
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Science likes to portray itself as an open-minded borderless republic of reason where curiosity is the only passport needed. However, passports can be revoked. Curiosity, it turns out, can also make you unwelcome. In theory, scientific inquiry is a protected space, especially for those who venture outside traditional disciplines. However, Dr. Oleg Maltsev’s story tells a different tale. Abroad, his colleagues welcome his contributions, inviting him to conferences, publishing his papers, and engaging with him openly. In Ukraine, however, Maltsev faces suspicion and even arrest.
Oleg Maltsev, a scientist, not a soldier, was arrested on September 12, 2024. He has been held in pretrial detention in Odesa ever since and is accused of violating Article 260 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, which concerns the creation or participation in an armed or paramilitary formation. The charge sounds serious, but that is part of the problem. The provision is vague. Anyone familiar with the law knows it can be interpreted in different ways, depending on who is interpreting it. This is why careful observers are more concerned with the circumstances surrounding this particular case than with the statute itself.
Attacks on academic independence
The absence of substantial evidence, the manipulation of facts, the pressure placed on witnesses, and finally, the threats directed at the legal team, which culminated in the arrest of the lead defense lawyer, all raise serious concerns. These developments help explain why a French human rights organization publicly referred to the case as fabricated at a United Nations session on human rights. However, this article does not intend to explore the motives of those who hold unchecked power. The real question is why these attacks on academic independence and intellectual autonomy happen repeatedly. To understand Oleg Maltsev’s story, you must first abandon familiar categories.
He is not the type of academic who observes society from a safe distance. As a sociologist studying criminal behavior, he immerses himself in the most violent districts of Cape Town and confronts the reality of crime head on. In Italy, Maltsev delves into archives to explore the history of ‘Ndrangheta, the most powerful criminal organization. He’s not searching for neat, sanitized theories; he’s seeking the raw truths buried beneath the layers of history.
His psychological research follows a similar path. Maltsev studies the mind outside of the laboratory. He uses skeet shooting as a model to study how the mind works. The result is a body of work that challenges conventional thinking. For his dissertation, Maltsev spent hundreds of hours listening to war survivors. His goal was not to build neat tables of statistics, but rather to detect patterns that academic journals might overlook. For Maltsev, psychology, criminology, philosophy, sociology, and the subtle dynamics of the human mind and memory are not separate territories. They are interconnected landscapes that he moves through seamlessly. He doesn’t ask disciplines for permission; he simply walks in.
Science, a universal pursuit?
Maltsev operates entirely outside of institutional frameworks. He embodies the ideals that institutions claim to value: originality, fearless exploration, and interdisciplinary innovation. Paradoxically, however, these are the same qualities that institutions find hardest to tolerate. His ‘crime’ is not forming a supposedly paramilitary group, but rather thinking freely and openly.
Science is often spoken of as a universal pursuit. It is a system built on objectivity, open inquiry, and shared truths. In practice, however, what counts as ‘real science’ is rarely decided by the work alone. Rather, legitimacy is conferred through institutions, credentials, and geopolitical alignment. Legitimacy behaves like currency. It flows more easily to those who speak the right language, carry the right credentials, and move in the right circles. Others, no matter how original their contributions may be, remain on the outskirts.
Maltsev operates in this outer zone. He is independent and unconventional, and he has built his own platform that doesn’t rely on state or university support. In calmer times, this autonomy might be admired. In unstable times, however, it becomes problematic. With the help of the prosecution in the Maltsev case, autonomous research institutes were transformed into saboteur training centers, and scientists, archivists, and translators were branded dangerous militants plotting to take over the city. This is the price of academic freedom. That’s the quiet reality of science on the margins.
The problem isn’t national
Oleg Maltsev’s case is not isolated; it fits into a broader pattern. Throughout history, there have been many independent scientists and thinkers who were misunderstood by the societies they sought to serve. These individuals stepped outside familiar intellectual boundaries, challenged comfortable assumptions, and paid the price for their freedom. Consider 20th-century writers and intellectuals who worked under fascist or authoritarian regimes in Italy (1922–1945), Turkey (1920s–1930s), Greece (1936–1941 and 1967–1974), Germany (1933–1945), and Spain (1939–1975), yet did not become corrupted by them. Their writings often sparked uncomfortable conversations and provoked hostility, not because they were wrong, but because they dared to not conform.
This pattern repeats itself across continents, eras, and disciplines. Independent thinkers working outside or at the margins of formal institutions routinely attract suspicion. The accusations vary – sectarianism, pseudoscience, and political subversion – but the underlying reason remains the same: societies often respond to unfamiliar ideas with fear and prefer the reassuring stability of accepted wisdom.
The problem isn’t national. It is not limited to or specific to Germany, Italy, or Ukraine. Rather, it’s social, political, and ultimately human. When new knowledge emerges from unexpected places in voices that speak outside the official narrative, we bristle. We look for a way to dismiss it before we begin to understand it. Often, the value of a discovery is judged not by what it offers but by whether it conforms to the expected institutional structure. Institutions, for all their lofty structures and rules, are made up of people. People have always carried an uneasy fear of the unconventional within them, an instinctive caution toward those who disturb established certainties. It’s human to seek comfort in familiar ideas, faces, and categories. So, when someone shows up with a mind that does not match the filing system, logic does not decide their fate. It is fear.
History doesn’t repeat itself
We silence what we cannot immediately understand because misunderstanding makes us uneasy. By silencing unconventional ideas, we shut down the very conversations that might reveal new truths, solutions, and ways of understanding our world. We tell ourselves that history repeats itself. It’s as if it were an autonomous force doomed to repeat itself. But history doesn’t repeat itself. People do. Time and again, we respond to what unsettles us with suspicion. We defend our comfort zones like fragile empires. When we witness the same dramas play out – such as the isolation of thinkers or the attack on unapproved ideas – we are not watching history. We are watching ourselves.
However, this cycle of suspicion and persecution is not inevitable. It isn’t a law of nature. It continues only because we allow it. We prefer easy answers to challenging questions and neat categories to messy truths. Breaking this cycle requires changing our perception. It means viewing polymaths and independent thinkers as guardians of intellectual evolution rather than threats. Their questions unsettle us precisely because they are valuable, and their insights disturb us precisely because they force us to think differently. If we want history to stop repeating itself, we will have to do something it cannot: We will have to change.
Notes from the editors: An international petition called ‘Demand Justice: Suspicion of Malicious Prosecution in Dr. Maltsev Case’ has been created in support of Oleg Maltsev. By signing the petition, you can contribute to the fight for academic freedom and independent thought.