LONDON, September 20. /TASS/. Europe's particle physics laboratory CERN will expel hundreds of scientists who are affiliated with Russian institutions from the beginning of December this year, Nature magazine reports.

According to the periodical, from December 1, Russia-affiliated scientists will no longer be able to access the CERN site, and must hand in any French or Swiss residency permits they hold.

To continue research in the laboratories of the organization those wishing to will have to stop cooperation with Russian institutions and move to foreign research centers. At the same time, CERN will continue to work on projects already underway with about 270 employees of the Russian Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), who conduct experiments at the NICA collider in Dubna near Moscow.

"The experiments will feel the loss of Russian expertise," Nature quotes Hannes Jung, a particle physicist at the German Electron Synchrotron in Hamburg as saying. This decision "will leave a hole," Jung warns. The magazine notes that "Russia's funding agencies and institutions contributed around 4.5% to the LHC experiments' combined budget," and "the loss of Russia's expected contribution to the High-Luminosity LHC, a high-intensity upgrade scheduled for 2029, will cost CERN an extra $47 million."

The LHC is the world's most powerful charged gas particle accelerator located near Geneva, Switzerland. Involved in the work to build the accelerator and stage experiments there were 100,000 specialists from 44 countries, including Russia. Experiments at the LHC led to the discovery of more than 60 new subatomic particles, including pentaquarks, and also proved the existence of the Higgs boson, the clue to understanding the mechanism of how some other elementary particles acquire mass.

In March 2022, CERN suspended Russia's observer status. In June of the same year, the CERN Council decided not to extend beyond 2024 the cooperation agreements with Russia and Belarus, concluded back in 1955 by the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Council voted against terminating cooperation with Russia’s JINR.