Systemic Problems on the Path to Technological Sovereignty: From Illusions of Cooperation to the Reality of Dependency

Systemic Problems on the Path to Technological Sovereignty: From Illusions of Cooperation to the Reality of Dependency
Instead of a prologue: when rhetoric diverges from reality
In recent years, the concept of “technological sovereignty” has become one of the main slogans of Russian politics. It appears in presidential addresses, digital transformation strategies, and documents on BRICS development. The BRICS INNO forum, scheduled for November 2026, is meant to be yet another platform where “innovators, investors, and science will unite to create an alternative technological ecosystem.” But behind the ceremonial rhetoric lies a deep systemic problem: the cooperation mechanisms built over decades have not led to genuine technology transfer, and the very notion of sovereignty is increasingly being replaced by the imitation of activity — the creation of committees, working groups, and “roadmaps” that exist only on paper.
A telling symptom of this disconnect is the appearance in expert circles of a satirical “Appeal to Respected Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin” demanding the approval of a “white list of physical laws and constants” based on their alignment with traditional values. The author of the appeal, who holds real influence, chose the form of grotesque for a reason:
“Mechanics relies on Newton, electrodynamics on Maxwell, the theory of relativity on Einstein, quantum mechanics on Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and other ideologically alien authors. This state of affairs is unacceptable and requires immediate revision.”
This text is not a real policy proposal but a desperate attempt to expose the absurdity of a situation where ideological filters are already being imposed on education, communication, and science — and where fundamental laws, without which modern industry is unthinkable, could become the next target. However, as often happens in today’s system, satire risks being taken literally. That is why it is important to separately and honestly examine the real problems that make the appearance of such texts possible.

1. BRICS: from loud declarations to an asymmetric sales market
Official rhetoric presents BRICS as an alliance of equals, within which countries jointly build a new technological architecture. Over the more than 20 years of the organization’s existence, numerous working groups, committees, and programs have been created — from the BRICS Framework Programme for Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) to the recent National Committee for Business Cooperation (RF, 2026) and the ChinaBRICS Research Center for New Productive Forces. However, an analysis of actual hightech trade flows and joint research paints a different picture.
According to a study published in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2025), China accounted for more than 70% of hightech goods exports among BRICS countries in 2021. The other members — Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and the newly joined states — are net importers of Chinese technologies, primarily in the categories of “computers and telecommunications,” “electronics,” and “optics.” Moreover, as experts from Moscow State University note, Chinese partners are not willing to share their latest key developments, preferring to limit themselves to supplying finished products. Within BRICS, the very model of technological subordination that Russia sought to escape by breaking ties with the West is being reproduced. The only difference is that the center of dependency has shifted from west to east.
“As long as calculations of reactor processes or projectile trajectories continue to be determined by bourgeois pseudoformulas and models developed outside our scientific tradition, it is premature to speak of genuine sovereignty,” the author of the appeal ironically notes.
But if we replace “bourgeois pseudoformulas” with “Chinese readymade solutions,” the essence remains the same: dependence on a foreign technological core does not disappear — it merely changes its political label.

2. Institutional trap: dozens of committees and very few real projects
Over two decades of BRICS existence, an extensive institutional structure has been created. At least a dozen main structures can be counted:
1.BRICS Framework Programme for Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) — formalized cooperation, but coordination remains difficult.
2.BRICS STI Coordination Committee — coordinates the work of other committees.
3.Thematic working groups (AI, biotech, climate, space) — they exist, but there are virtually no reports of real products.
4.BRICS Young Scientists Forum — a networking platform, not tied to specific projects.
5.BRICS Institute of Future Networks — deals with digital technologies, but no major breakthroughs have been recorded.
6.BRICS Business Council — lobbies for the interests of large companies but does not resolve competitive contradictions.
7.National Committee for Business Cooperation (RF, March 2026) — the newest structure, designed to “institutionalize the link between private capital and the state.”
8.ChinaBRICS Research Center for New Productive Forces — opened in March 2026 in Beijing to train interdisciplinary specialists.
9.BRICS Vaccine Center (under the auspices of Fiocruz, Brazil) — has been discussing governance since 2022 but has not created a single vaccine.
10.India’s Digital Transformation Initiative (BRICS ICT Working Group) — showcases the successes of AADHAAR, but there is no integration between countries.
However, the number of committees is inversely proportional to the number of implemented joint projects. Let us examine three of the most striking examples where some result is visible, yet they clearly demonstrate the limitations of cooperation.
2.1. Earth remote sensing satellite constellation
This is the most concrete success, often cited as a model of cooperation. Russia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa do exchange satellite imagery. In the first year of the agreement, data covering 27 million square kilometers were transmitted. Specific examples:
China provided Russia with data on 560,000 sq. km to monitor an oil spill in the Black Sea.
Russia provided India with data on 34,500 sq. km for earthquake relief.
Why does this work? Because it does not require the transfer of intellectual property or critical technologies. Participants simply share existing images — a barter that poses no threat to sovereignty. But that is precisely why the project cannot serve as a model for hightech areas that require joint development of new solutions.
2.2. New Development Bank (NDB): money instead of technology
The NDB is the only institution where funds have actually gone into projects rather than committees. Over 10 years, more than 130 projects worth $42 billion have been approved. Specific examples:
Brazil: “Smart Hospital” in São Paulo. Capacity will increase from 160,000 to 280,000 patients per year. AI for scheduling and digital records are being introduced.
China: A zerocarbon airport in Taiyuan (smart energy management system) and offshore wind power in Guangdong.
India: $100 million into the NIIFII fund for venture investment in digital infrastructure.
But this is financing, not joint development. The NDB provides money, and each country implements its own national projects. The word “cooperation” is conditional here: it is simply a replacement of Western lenders with Eastern ones. No technology exchange takes place.
2.3. Medicine: tuberculosis and vaccines
The BRICS TB Research Network has existed since 2017. To date, it has three active research projects (for example, developing inhibitors for drugresistant pathogens). The BRICS Vaccine Center, created several years ago, is still discussing “governance and regulatory cooperation” without moving closer to creating an actual drug.
The main reason is the incompatibility of national performance evaluation systems. As a study published in the journal Technovation (2026) showed, the most critical barriers are not crosscultural differences but institutional ones: in some countries, scientists are evaluated by the number of publications in highimpact journals; in others, by patent activity; in still others, by applied implementations. Until these systems are harmonized, any joint project encounters internal resistance from researchers who are forced to choose between international cooperation and meeting local reporting targets.

3. Legal vacuum and the risk of losing intellectual property
Legal uncertainty remains one of the main restraining factors. As Alexander Linnikov, founder of the law firm “Linnikov & Partners,” noted at the inaugural meeting of the BRICS+ Entrepreneurship Development Council (March 2026), the bloc lacks a unified system for protecting intellectual property, agreed rules for technology transfer, and standardized dispute resolution procedures.
In practice, this means that Russian developers entering into cooperation with Chinese or Indian partners have no guarantee that the technologies they create will not be used without their involvement. Moreover, the absence of transparent mechanisms for fairly allocating rights to the results of joint research means that many promising projects remain at the memorandum stage and never move to real implementation.

4. Ideological pressure and digital regulation policy: working in a vacuum
The satirical appeal demanding “verification of physical laws for compliance with traditional values” did not appear out of nowhere. In recent years, Russia has built a system of strict internet regulation: slowing down foreign resources, blocking entire platforms, tightening data storage requirements, and most recently introducing paid access mechanisms for VPNs. Starting May 1, 2026, telecom operators plan to introduce separate pricing for international traffic, effectively making the use of circumvention tools paid. In professional circles, this has already been called “internet ration coupons” — a symbolic return to the practice of limited access to information.
For many researchers and engineers, this creates a feeling of working in a “vacuum”: access to international databases, scientific journals, and collaboration platforms becomes either difficult, expensive, or dependent on bureaucratic permissions. This is felt especially acutely by sociologists, political scientists, historians — those whose work requires constant access to diverse sources of information, including foreign archives, media, and analytical systems. Today, even when preparing materials for government agencies, situations arise where necessary information is unavailable not for technical reasons but for administrative ones.
And although the author of the appeal likely intended to mock the logic of total ideological control, his text demonstrates the depth of despair: when professional expertise is replaced by ideological loyalty, and access to information becomes a matter of regulation, a scientist is left with either silence or the language of absurdity, hoping that the absurdity will be noticed.
“Particular concern is also caused by the fact that a significant part of these ideologically harmful physical theories were formed outside the framework of traditional values” — this phrase, while grotesque, accurately copies rhetoric already used in real documents on the “protection of traditional values” in education and digital policy.
The real danger is that if such approaches are institutionalized, they will lead to the destruction of fundamental scientific knowledge on which nuclear energy, the defense industry, aviation, and microelectronics rest. But no less dangerous is the erosion of the humanities and social sciences, which are deprived of access to information and thereby lose the ability to conduct objective analysis.

5. Talent crisis and brain drain: when scientists have nowhere to get information
Even if we assume that institutional and legal problems will be solved, the question of human capital remains. But today, a new factor has been added to the traditional drivers of emigration (salaries, working conditions) — the information vacuum. A scientist deprived of the ability to work with international databases, participate in open conferences, and receive uptodate information about developments in their field inevitably begins to fall behind. This leads to a situation where even researchers who remain in the country lose their qualifications, while young people increasingly see a scientific career as a dead end.
The BRICS countries are at different stages of demographic and educational transition. Russia and China are facing a reduction in scientific and technical personnel due to population aging and emigration. India has a huge pool of young specialists but loses its best graduates to the US and Europe. Intrabloc mobility of scientists and engineers remains extremely low. Language barriers, visa difficulties, differences in pay levels — all of this prevents the formation of a common scientific and technological space.
Under these circumstances, it is unrealistic to expect BRICS to become a source of talent replenishment for Russian science. Moreover, if administrative restrictions on access to information are added to the traditional problems, we risk completely losing touch with the global scientific context.

Conclusion: a false fork
Russia today faces, in essence, two false forks. The first is the belief that BRICS or other alliances of “friendly countries” will solve the problem of technological dependency. As practice shows, dependency merely changes form, remaining dependency. The second is the attempt to solve the problem through an ideological purge of science, declaring as “alien” the fundamental laws discovered outside our country. This attempt is aggravated by the digital regulation system, which is gradually cutting Russian scientists off from the global information field, forcing them to work in a “vacuum” and lose their qualifications.
Both forks lead to the same outcome: the loss of the ability to create and maintain critical technologies. Real sovereignty, unlike its imitation, requires long, systemic, and often invisible work — on education, institutions, the legal environment, and also on ensuring free access to the information necessary for the development of science. And until this work becomes a priority, satirical appeals to the President demanding a “white list of laws” will remain not a grotesque but an accurate description of what is happening before our eyes.
© Tatiana Burmagina & EWA
Source: The Trends https://thetrends.tech/tpost/system_problems