Anatomy of the Abnormal Growth in the Number of Russian Publications in Conference Proceedings in Scopus

— Many researchers have observed the phenomenon of a rapid increase in the number of publications by Russian researchers in conference proceedings that are indexed in international databases. This phenomenon tends to be associated with the general publication pressure caused by the peculiarities of the national science policy and is accompanied, among other things, by systemic violations of scientific ethics. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the flow of publications with Russian participation of a conference paper document type in the Scopus database and related resources. Its results cast doubt on some seemingly obvious ideas about the low quality of “home” conferences on the significance of the influence of foreign “garbage” conferences and other suspicious practices related to the development of this phenomenon.