Taras Persidskyy and Arik of Negev, Shahed Hunters

Meet the nanotechnologist Taras Kavetskyy, born 1974, associate professor at the Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, an expert in everything. If you don’t believe me: look at his publication output, which is full with what clearly looks like Iranian papermill trash, featuring several toxic names from known fraudsters.

Kavetsky was appointed by his university to investigate himself, which he duly did, and concluded with an announcement that his Iranian papers passed peer review and high-ranking journals and that he will sue me for libel. His octogenerian Ukrainian co-author, fellow polymath and assumed professor in Israel, Arnold Kiv, also issued lawsuit threats, plus demands for apologies.

Well, we are not in France, Spain or Italy here where such “investigations” are normal. I want Ukraine to be better than the EU states, research integrity-wise. Especially since other Ukrainian universities do better:

Especially since this Iranian papermill business is not at all funny. Ukrainians die and suffer in masses due in russian air raids, many of them performed with Iranian Shaheed drones. These drones are utterly useless against military targets, but they are incredibly effective as terror tools against power plants, electricity, heating and water supply infrastructure, river dams and high-rise buildings.

Already by May 2022 it was known that Iran was secretly sending weapons to russia to help putin’s regime with its genocidal war on Ukraine. In September 2022, russia deployed Shaheed drones against Ukrainian people for the first time, and has been using many hundreds of them until today to damage Ukrainian infrastructure and to terrorize civilians, causing much death, destruction and prolonged nation-wide energy blackouts. It was also became known that Iran sends its own experts to occupied territories of Ukraine so they personally launch and navigate russian terror drone strikes.

Kavetskyy is chemist specialising in nanotechnology. But not only. For example, he acted as corresponding author on reviews about cancer chemotherapy (Rashidzadeh et al 2022) or on cell biology of renal diseases (Ahmadian et al 2022). He holds a second affiliation at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in Poland. Which is not just called “Catholic” for historical reasons, no: it is a proper theological university founded around a century ago and run by members of Church clergy. I don’t know what the Lublin priests and nuns think of Kavetskyy’s Iranian activities – they never replied.

Kavetskyy encountered his new Iranian friends via his collaboration with Azerbaijan (discussed below). This collaboration relied on Kavetskyy’s expertise for such groundbreaking studies like irradiation of grape snails (Helix pomatia, Nasibova et al 2023, in MDPI) or the discovery of “biogenic iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles” in “Plant leaves (Eldar pine (Pinus eldarica M.), fig (Ficus carica L.), and olive (Olea europaea L.)), collected in territories with different ecological conditions” (Nasibova et al 2022, Hindawi), the latter with Iranian coauthors.

We can’t know how Kavetskyy reacted to the first Shaheed drones attacked on Ukraine, but a week later, on 20 September 2022, his paper with a bunch of Iranians was accepted for publication:

Shahriar Shahi , Fatemeh Dehghani , Elaheh Dalir Abdolahinia , Simin Sharifi , Elham Ahmadian , Márió Gajdács , Krisztina Kárpáti , Solmaz Maleki Dizaj , Aziz Eftekhari , Taras Kavetskyy Effect of gelatinous spongy scaffold containing nano-hydroxyapatite on the induction of odontogenic activity of dental pulp stem cells Journal of King Saud University – Science (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.jksus.2022.102340

As you see, being expert for everything, Kavetskyy is also expert in dentistry. And stem cells. His Iranian co-author from Tabriz, Aziz Eftekhari, used to sport the same Ukrainian affiliation as Kavetskyy, as evidenced by Nasibova et al 2022. Not anymore. Maybe Eftekhari left Ukraine affiliation-wise when the first Shaheed hit?

There’s another funny bit in that paper:

“2.1. Ethics approval
The ethical code of this investigation is IR.TBZMED.VCR.REC.1400.391, which was accepted by the Ethic Committee of the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences.”

There are no human or animal experiments in this paper. Only some “dental pulp stem cells” were allegedly used, without a word as to where they were bought or sourced from, or how they were cultured. Never mind how the authors knew those were actual “dental pulp stem cells” and not, say, orange juice. Of course it doesn’t matter because the study was obviously made up by an Iranian papermill.

However, I received a written reply from Kavetskyy, who retorted in defence of his dentistry paper (translated):

“the work […] was published in a journal with a high Impact Factor (3.829) of the first quartile of Q1, where there was no negative feedback from professional reviewers. The paper was submitted to the journal on June 5, 2022 (as evidenced by the article’s citation on page 102340-1), when there was no information available to us about the Iranian government’s support for Russia’s killer drone program.
The comments on this work by Leonid Schneider are not made by qualified experts, but simply by outsiders https://pubpeer.com/publications/57932998A46AC191B6BD7D2C73F2C2, to which there is no point in answering.”

Well this is just unfair. The PubPeer comment was even signed, by Alexander Magazinov, a russian mathematician in exile, plus another papermill sleuth, Nick Wise from UK. Bit arrogant of Kavetskyy to call them unqualified outsiders: they even wrote about such Renaissance Men like Kavetskyy!

The university was always proud of Kavetskyy’s collaboration with the Iranians, here an English-language press release from 2017:

“On July 10, 2017 there was a working meeting of Professor Rovshan Khalilov (Institute of Radiation Problems, NAS of Azerbaijan) with the Rector of Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University in Drohobych Professor Nadia Skotna.
The meeting was attended by the Dean of the Department of Biology and Natural Sciences Svitlana Voloshanska the faculty and the Ukrainian director of the Joint Ukrainian-Azerbaijani international scientific and educational center of nanobiotechnologies and functional nanosystems Associate Professor Taras Kavetsky. Professor Rovshan Khalilov informed about the achievements of this structure in the academic year 2016/2017, mentioning the joint publication of scientific papers in journals with high impact factor, in particular, Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine and Biotechnology (2016 Impact Factor: 5.605) in collaboration with Iranian scientists and namely, the scientific consultant of the center – Dr. Abofazl Akbar-zade and his team.“

Those fancy research studies in a papermill-infested trash journal were of course all reviews. No less than NINE papers by the great Abofazl Akbarzadeh in that very journal and elsewhere was more recently RETRACTED for fraud, and many more were flagged on PubPeer, mostly by Elisabeth Bik (who is probbaly also an unqualified outsider). Even Retraction Watch wrote about Akbarzadeh’s retraction troubles.

In the next study, our polymath Kavetskyy was joined by other Ukrainian scholars (more on them later) and certain established Iranian papermill customers: Fatemeh Karimi (11 papers on PubPeer) and Sadegh Rostamnia (15 papers on PubPeer), the latter an associate of the Spanish papermiller Rafael Luque (now affiliated in Russia!) and of Iran’s murderous minister for research and papermilling fraudster, Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, read here:

The paper was accepted on 23 April 2022, to be fair, before the Shaheeds arrived:

Rahimeh Nasiri , Behnam Gholipour , Maryam Nourmohammadi , Ziba Karimi , Samira Doaee , Reza Taghavi , Sadegh Rostamnia , Elham Zarenezhad , Fatemeh Karimi , Taras Kavetskyy , Oleh Smutok , Arnold Kiv , Vladimir Soloviev , Samad Khaksar , Ashraf Sadat Hamidi Mesoporous hybrid organosilica for stabilizing Pd nanoparticles and aerobic alcohol oxidation through Pd hydride (Pd–H2) species International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.04.242

Kavetskyy wrote in his letter to his rector about this paper (translated):

“The work was carried out on the basis of close international cooperation. The work on this article was completed before the treacherous attack on Ukraine by Russia. A draft of the article was prepared in 2021 and submitted to this journal on January 3, 2022 (see the article’s publication history on page 6489). There was no negative feedback from peer reviewers, and the article was published in a
journal with a high Impact Factor (7.139) of the first quartile of Q1.”

The paper was of course part of a Special Issue handled by two Iranian guest editors, one of them, Yasser Vasseghian, was caught with a multi-author COVID-19 paper with nonsense references, a sign of a papermill origin. It should also be mentioned that International Journal of Hydrogen Energy is a massive fraud factory run by the Veziroglu family. Massive fraudsters like Ruggiero Santilli and Fatih Sen call it their safe home. Read here:

In fact, I am surprised Kavetskyy hasn’t authored any papers with Sen (who seems to operate a papermill of his own, selling to authors in China). Maybe Sen is too expensive.

Now, guess if I was surprised to see Kavetskyy publishing together with the papermiller Rajender S Varma, who was recently kicked out at the University of Olomouc in Czechia? I wasn’t.

Behnam Gholipour , Salman Shojaei , Sadegh Rostamnia , Mohammad Reza Naimi-Jamal , Dokyoon Kim , Taras Kavetskyy , Nasrin Nouruzi , Ho Won Jang , Rajender S. Varma, Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr Metal-free nanostructured catalysts: sustainable driving forces for organic transformations Green Chemistry (2021) doi: 10.1039/d1gc01366a

Another known papermilling co-author on that paper, often spotted with Varma, is the Iranian Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr (17 papers on PubPeer). And there’s also Rostamnia. As a PubPeer commented noted:

“The first two sentences of this paper are packed with self-citations to a certain RS Varma and a certain S Rostamnia. As a side-effect, for example, the reader may receive a message which is at best disputable, and at worst misleading: that the field of “green and sustainable chemistry” has been single-handedly developed by Varma.”

Smooth way to get 16 self-citations in two introductory sentences @green_rsc https://t.co/EY5odGR8KB pic.twitter.com/TkBb4YNuGY

— FX Coudert (@fxcoudert) March 27, 2023

And here is Kavetskyy with Rostamnia and Shokouhimehr, all playing corresponding authors. Most citations went to Rostamnia and his collaborator E. Doustkha, using flimsy pretext like “In line with our continuing efforts to synthesize solid heterogeneous catalysts and organic compounds,[18–22]“. Another co-author is Kavetskyy’s collaborator you met above: Rovshan Khalilov, the Azeri dude with an extra affiliation in russia (Moscow State Pedagogical University). According to the paper’s frank declaration about authors’ input, he and Kavetskyy contributed absolutely nothing.

Asadollah Hassankhani , Behnam Gholipour , Sadegh Rostamnia , Elham Zarenezhad , Nasrin Nouruzi , Taras Kavetskyy , Rovshan Khalilov , Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr Sustainable design and novel synthesis of highly recyclable magnetic carbon containing aromatic sulfonic acid: Fe ₃ O ₄ @C/Ph—SO ₃ H as green solid acid promoted regioselective synthesis of tetrazoloquinazolines Applied Organometallic Chemistry (2021) doi: 10.1002/aoc.6346 

Was I surprised to see Kavetskyy with the German orthopaedics professor Magali Cucchiarini-Madry, surrounded by various Iranians (plus some of Kavetskyy’s friends in Slovakia and Ukraine), devising nanotech cures for liver cancer?

Aziz Eftekhari , Allahveirdy Arjmand , Ayyub Asheghvatan , Helena Švajdlenková , Ondrej Šauša , Huseyn Abiyev , Elham Ahmadian , Oleh Smutok , Rovshan Khalilov , Taras Kavetskyy , Magali Cucchiarini The Potential Application of Magnetic Nanoparticles for Liver Fibrosis Theranostics Frontiers in Chemistry (2021) doi: 10.3389/fchem.2021.674786 

Read about the exploits by husband and wife Madry into Iranian papermills, and how their Saarland University endorses it:

Fun fact: Aziz Eftekhari‘s affiliations were back in 2021 Moscow State Pedagogical University (!) and Kavetskyy’s John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Recall that the next year, in 2022, he joined the Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University in Ukraine.

I wasn’t surprised (but very entertained) to spot Kavetskyy on the same Iranian papermill trash as Varma or Cucchiarini-Madry. But spotting Kavetskyy on the same Iranian papermill trash as Thomas Webster was an even bigger source of joy!

Webster was sacked by the Northeastern University in USA and by his Taylor & Francis journal Artificial Cells Nanomedicine and Biotechnology after my reporting and my colleagues’ investigation into his massive fraud both as nanotechnology researcher and as Editor-in-Chief.

By the way, remember Kavetskyy’s great Iranian collaborator Akbarzadeh? Many of his retractions took place at that journal Artificial Cells Nanomedicine and Biotechnology which Kavetskyy’s university was so proud of. The retractions took place after Webster’s sacking of course.

Another paper by Webster and Kavetskyy, and certain Iranians who are worth remembering:

Hamed Nosrati , Elahe Attari , Fatemeh Abhari , Murat Barsbay , Mohammadreza Ghaffarlou , Navid Mousazadeh , Rasoul Vaezi , Taras Kavetskyy , Hamed Rezaeejam , Thomas J. Webster , Behrooz Johari , Hossein Danafar Complete ablation of tumors using synchronous chemoradiation with bimetallic theranostic nanoparticles Bioactive Materials (2022)   doi: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2021.05.015 

But it was not the recycled image which is the definite proof that the study is completely fake and made up. Consider this familiar quote from this masterpiece:

“This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Zanjan University of Medical Sciences with the IR.ZUMS.REC.1397.151 ethical code, and the study participants signed an informed consent.”

Informed consent, right-ho. Now the abstract:

“Impressively, this combined one-dose chemoradiation therapeutic injection of co-drug loaded bimetallic multifunctional theranostic nanoparticles with a one-time clinical X-ray irradiation, completely eradicated tumors in mice after approximately 20 days after irradiation showing extremely effective anticancer efficacy which should be further studied for numerous anti-cancer applications.”

The methods sections mentions no patients or clinical studies, but in vivo experiments with 4 BALB/c mice. Who “signed an informed consent” to be “euthanized and the major organs (i.e., heart, liver, spleen and kidney) were studied using a hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining assay“.

In fact, the sentence “All study protocols were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Zanjan University of Medical Sciences with ethical code IR.ZUMS.REC.1397.151, and the study participants provided informed consent” appeared in earlier studies by the Iranian geniuses Hamed Nofrati and Hossein Danafar, for example in Nosrati et al 2019 (no humans, just BALB/c mice again) and Nosrati et al 2020 (ditto, “a 4T1-tumor bearing mouse model“).

Also here, same friends Kavetskyy, Nosrati and Danafar and their informed and consentual BALB/c female mice, the latter were “sacrificed, major organs such as the heart, liver, spleen and kidney were removed and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, embedded in paraffin and sectioned at 5 mm“:

Hamed Nosrati , Yasamin Baghdadchi , Reza Abbasi , Murat Barsbay , Mohammadreza Ghaffarlou , Fatemeh Abhari , Ali Mohammadi , Taras Kavetskyy , Shayesteh Bochani , Hamed Rezaeejam , Soodabeh Davaran , Hossein Danafar Iron oxide and gold bimetallic radiosensitizers for synchronous tumor chemoradiation therapy in 4T1 breast cancer murine model Journal of Materials Chemistry B (2021) doi: 10.1039/d0tb02561e 

“This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Zanjan University of Medical Sciences with the IR.ZUMS.REC.1398.441 ethical code and the study participants signed informed consent.”

No informed consent was sought here though:

Siamak Javani , Murat Barsbay , Mohammadreza Ghaffarlou , Navid Mousazadeh , Ali Mohammadi , Faezeh Mozafari , Hamed Rezaeejam , Leila Nasehi , Hamed Nosrati , Taras Kavetskyy , Hossein Danafar Metronidazole conjugated bismuth sulfide nanoparticles for enhanced X-ray radiation therapy Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.jddst.2022.103336 

“This project was approved by the Ethics Committee of Golestan University of Medical Sciences (Ethics code: IR.GOUMS.REC.1399.054). ”

Yet no animals or humans participated in this study. Just a commercially available 4T1 cancer cell line, for which sane people never need an ethics approval. In reality, the study was likely completely made up anyway.

We also find that bizarre sentence in this paper by Kavetskyy with the Iranian gang around Danafar and Nofrati:

Marziyeh Salehiabar , Mohammadreza Ghaffarlou , Ali Mohammadi , Navid Mousazadeh , Hossein Rahimi , Fatemeh Abhari , Hamid Rashidzadeh , Leila Nasehi , Hamed Rezaeejam , Murat Barsbay , Yavuz Nuri Ertas , Hamed Nosrati , Taras Kavetskyy , Hossein Danafar Targeted CuFe2O4 hybrid nanoradiosensitizers for synchronous chemoradiotherapy Journal of Controlled Release (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.12.004 

“Ethical considerations
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Iran National Science Foundation (Code: INSF-98018277), and the study participants signed an informed consent“

This time there were no mice or even cell lines to sign an informed consent for their evisceration. The paper is about nothing else but nanoparticle synthesis. No biological tests at all. This phony Iranian papermill trash was accepted and published in December 2022, with Kavetskyy on board. presumably to celebrate the deaths and destructions caused by Iranian Shaheeds in Ukraine in the months before.

And now, all together: Kavetskyy, Webster, Nosrati, Danafar, Eftekhari, other Iranians, jointly CURING COVID-19. With nanotechnology.

Hamid Rashidzadeh , Hossein Danafar , Hossein Rahimi , Faezeh Mozafari , Marziyeh Salehiabar , Mohammad Amin Rahmati , Samaneh Rahamooz-Haghighi , Navid Mousazadeh , Ali Mohammadi , Yavuz Nuri Ertas , Ali Ramazani , Irada Huseynova , Rovshan Khalilov , Soodabeh Davaran , Thomas J Webster , Taras Kavetskyy , Aziz Eftekhari , Hamed Nosrati , Mehdi Mirsaeidi Nanotechnology against the novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2): diagnosis, treatment, therapy and future perspectives Nanomedicine (2021) doi: 10.2217/nnm-2020-0441 

Thanks to the polymath genius Kavetskyy (and his Moscow-affiliated Azeri friend Khalilov), the Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in Iran became the hub of COVID-19 and gene engineering research, assisted by Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Hacettepe University (Turkey), Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (USA):

Hossein Rahimi , Marziyeh Salehiabar , Murat Barsbay , Mohammadreza Ghaffarlou , Taras Kavetskyy , Ali Sharafi , Soodabeh Davaran , Subhash C. Chauhan , Hossein Danafar , Saeed Kaboli , Hamed Nosrati , Murali M. Yallapu , João Conde CRISPR Systems for COVID-19 Diagnosis ACS Sensors (2021) doi: 10.1021/acssensors.0c02312

It should be mentioned that Nosrati and Danafar, Kavetskyy’s Persian colleagues at Zanjan, are research fraudsters who either buy from or even run a papermill. Here is their PubPeer record. Just one example, a hand-drawn spectra which was recycled from their earlier paper:

Now you probabaly can’t wait to know how exactly Kavetskyy’s Ukrainian employer, the Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, reacted to all this evidence.

I contacted them on 18 March 2023, in Ukrainian even. On 23 March 2023, I received this letter from the Rector Valentina Bodak, where she curtly informed me that all my allegations against Kavetskyy were “groundless and baseless”, also because they lack all evidence. Case dismissed.

Attached was a letter from Kavetsky, also dated 23 March 2023, where he replied with what I already quoted above, plus threats to sue me in court.

Basically, instead of investigating the allegations, the rector asked Kavetskyy to investigate himself. He duly did, and the rector closed the case the same moment his report arrived.

This is what Kavetsky wrote (translated):

“First, I must state that I have never had and could never have had any commercial relations with an Iranian scientists. I have no idea how a scientist can buy co-authorship in a scientific publication. It is known that modern research involves a large amount of measurements and calculations, which is
provided by many laboratories in different countries. In the articles where I was a co-author, all co-authors performed a part of the work, and if necessary, this is confirmed by their approval. These author contributions are usually
indicated at the end of an article.
Some of my joint work with Iranian scientists began in 2016 in connection with my contacts with Professor Rovshan Khalilov (Institute of Radiation Problems of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences). Together with Professor Khalilov, we organized the joint scientific and educational center “Ukraine-Azerbaijan”.
Unfortunately, the situation in the world has changed dramatically due to the military aggression against Ukraine. Any relations with Iran are now interrupted.
The joint articles were prepared for publication up to this point. It should be noted that these articles were published in journals with a high impact factor and passed a highly qualified peer review under supervision of the journal’s Editor.

He ended with a threat to sue me:

“Summarizing the above, I would like to note that the serious accusation made by Leonid Schneider regarding my purchase of copyright for scientific publications is groundless and completely unfounded. He has embarked on a path of unacceptable slander, not only against me, but also against my colleagues (Prof. Oleg Smutok, Prof. Arnold Kiv, Prof. Vladimir Solovyov). We have all the necessary evidence to bring Leonid Schneider to justice for slander and moralturpitude. If he continues his actions, which are unworthy of the honor of a
scientist, we will take all necessary measures within the law to expose him.”

Now, let us talk about Kavetskyy’s slandered Ukrainian coauthors.

Here is Oleh Smutok, faculty member at the Institute of Cell Biology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Lviv, and assistant professor at Clarkson University in New York (USA, not the embattled New York in Donbass).

Oleh Smutok , Taras Kavetskyy , Tetiana Prokopiv , Roman Serkiz , Ondrej Šauša , Ivan Novák , Helena Švajdlenková , Igor Maťko , Mykhailo Gonchar , Evgeny Katz Biosensor Based on Peroxidase-Mimetic Nanozyme and Lactate Oxidase for Accurate L-Lactate Analysis in Beverages Biosensors (2022) doi: 10.3390/bios12111042

Smutok explained on PubPeer:

“Chronoamperometric analysis was performed using continuous magnetic stirring. Sometimes, we have observed such signal/noise repetitions due to the stirring. It did not affect the accuracy of the analysis.“

“Stirring”. I wonder who did this naughty “stirring” to that figure. Important also that Smutok is not concerned about someone faking data in his paper, he instead insists such pattern repetitions were normal. Konstantin Kapustyak, deputy scientific director of the Lviv institute, denied his responsibility for investigation but told me about Smutok:

“Actually, Oleg Smutok really works at our institute, but he is a scientist of the highest level and there is no need for him to engage in any kind of fraud.”

I never received any replies from Kapustyak or anyone else in Lviv since. Or from Clarkson University for that matter.

Here another interesting paper by Kavetskyy and Smutok, this time again with Iranians, including the papermiller Mohammad Hasanzadeh:

Taras Kavetskyy , Mahdieh Alipour , Oleh Smutok , Oksana Mushynska , Arnold Kiv , Dietmar Fink , Fatemeh Farshchi , Elham Ahmadian , Mohammad Hasanzadeh Magneto-immunoassay of cancer biomarkers: Recent progress and challenges in biomedical analysis Microchemical Journal (2021) doi: 10.1016/j.microc.2021.106320 

Several references make no sense at all. And there are “tortured phrases”, which arise when stolen text is chased through translations to fool publishers’ plagiarism detection.

You will have spotted another recurrent co-author: the space physicist Arnold Kiv, probably in his mid-80ies or older, carrier of both Soviet and Ukrainian academic awards. His current affiliation is South-Ukrainian K.D. Ushynsky National Pedagogical University in Odesa, and his original alma mater is the Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University (which also never replied to my emails), where Kiv was appointed as head of the physics department already in 1971. His mentee and successor there is another co-author of the Iranian trash you saw above – Vladimir Soloviev.

However, Kiv “official” affiliation on his LinkedIn and IEEE profiles and on the many conferences which he organises or speaks at, in Ukraine and abroad, is: Professor at the Ben Gurion University of Negev, Israel. Impressive!

Kiv also presently uses the Ben Gurion affiliation in his research papers (e.g. Kralovic et al 2023 or Semerikov et al 2022). With a notable exception: on those papers which Kiv co-authored with Kavetskyy with Israel-hating papermilling Iranians, there Kiv suddenly ceases to be an Israeli professor and uses only his Ukrainian affiliation. But this cunning practice is not the main problem.

Thing is, Kiv isn’t really a professor in Israel at all. As the press spokesman of the Ben Gurion University told me:

““He was employed to conduct research on occasion but was never a professor here.”

In his emails to me, Kiv resorted to insults. He called me demented because I left science. He kept demanding apologies:

“I strongly advise you to send an apology to all your addresses with a reference to the dishonest people who let you down.

About his non-existent professorship in Israel Kiv said that he hasn’t left Ukraine since 2007, and then this (translated):

“For your information, dear friend, I was a research professor at BSU for 8 years. I was supervisor of master’s and doctoral theses. Conducted seminars. Before that, he was a visiting professor in Canada. Of course, I received my professor’s certificate still in Moscow. Is it important to you? Please check.

I realized that my current position at LinkedIn is due to the fact that the organizers of some conferences, in order to improve their ranking, include famous people on the program committee without checking their last place of work. My question is: In what aspect should this bother a “science journalist?” What is important for the program committee – the scientist’s rating or where he currently works?

I also don’t understand another thing: what connection does the first question have with the “buying of scientific results” from Iranian scientists, which will need to be proven in court?
Leonid, once again I strongly advise you to apologize to all those involved in the initiated process, so that you do not have to answer for slander, moral damages and insults. You were dragged into this story by dishonest people, and you, falsely covering yourself with the slogan “Glory to Ukraine”, spoke against Ukrainian scientists with unfounded and offensive accusations. Listen to my advice.”

Right, because he was made professor in USSR this means he is professor in every university he ever sets foot in. In Israel, Canada, anywhere. Maybe even Iran. Oh wait, not there. And obviously I am the russian agent here who conspires against stars of Ukrainian science. Kiv and Kavetskyy are on the other hand two great Ukrainian patriots, never mind the Iranian papermill trash.

Well. Here is a very patriotic paper by Kiv.

Serhiy O. Semerikov , Vladyslav S. Pototskyi , Kateryna I. Slovak , Svitlana M. Hryshchenko , Arnold E. Kiv Automation of the Export Data from Open Journal Systems to the Russian Science Citation Index arXiv (2018) doi: 10.48550/arxiv.1807.00212 

From the abstract:

“The aim of the study is to develop the plug-in to the Open Journal Systems for the export of data from this system to scientometric database Russian Science Citation Index. As a result of the study, an infological model for exporting metadata from Open Journal Systems to the Russian Science Citation Index was proposed. The SirenExpo plug-in was developed to export data from Open Journal Systems to the Russian Science Citation Index by the use of the Articulus release preparation system.”

In 2018, four years after russia annexed Crimea and stealthily occupied Donbass, four years into russia’s war on Ukraine, which already then took thousands of Ukrainian lives, Kiv had nothing better to do than establishing the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) as an alternative to the Western databases.

And this even after russian scientist Rashit Khantemirov wrote about RSCI in 2014 (Google-translated):

“the experience of recent years has convinced me that the RSCI only brings harm. This harm is connected, firstly, with the fact that the database of RSCI journals resembles a huge garbage dump, in which it is not easy to find anything worthwhile. And, secondly, with the rampant fraud of individual authors and journals when cheating on their bibliometric indicators, which the RSCI leadership indulges with its fundamental unwillingness to counteract.”

I guess Kiv will find my citing of Khantemirov as proof that I am a russian agent? Anyway, how very patriotic is it of Kiv to neglect his real Ukrainian professorship and boast a non-existent one in Israel because it sounds so much fancier. Even during the current war for Ukraine’s survival, as he did at a at November 2022 virtual conference in Ukraine.

Let’s raise Ukrainian science above the EU level. Without input from Iranian papermills.

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Automation of the Export Data from Open Journal Systems to the Russian Science Citation Index by Kiv.