Russia wants to revive a Soviet-era particle accelerator that has been abandoned since the 1990s. The Kurchatov Institute for High Energy Physics has allocated 176 million rubles ($25m) to assess the current condition of the unfinished 600 GeV Proton Accelerator and Storage Complex (UNK) in Protvino near Moscow. The move is part of plans to strengthen Russia’s technological sovereignty and its activity in high-energy physics.
Although work on the UNK was officially halted in the 1990s, construction only ceased in 2013. At that time, a 21 km tunnel had been built at a depth of 60 m along with underground experimental hall lighting and ventilation systems.
In February 2025, physicist Mikhail Kovalchuk, president of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center, noted in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper that enormous intellectual and material resources had been invested in the UNK’s design and development before it was cancelled.
According to Kovalchuk, Western sanctions provided an additional impetus to restore the project, as scientists that had previously worked in CERN projects could no longer do so.
“By participating in [CERN] projects, we not only preserved our scientific potential and survived a difficult period, but also enriched ourselves intellectually and technologically,” added Kovalchuk. “Today we are self-sufficient.”
Anatoli Romaniouk, a Russian particle physicist who has worked at CERN since 1990, told Physics World that a revival of the UNK will at least maintain fundamental physics research in Russia.
“If this project is realized, then there is hope that it will be possible to at least somewhat slow down the scientific lag of Russian physics with global science,” says Romaniouk.
While official plans for the accelerator have not been disclosed, it is thought that the proton beam energy could be upgraded to reach 3 TeV. Romaniouk says it is also unclear what kind of science will be done with the accelerator, which will depend on what ideas come forward.
Yet some Russian scientists say that it could be used to produce neutrinos. This would involve putting a neutrino detector nearby to characterize the beam before it is sent some 4000 km towards Lake Baikal where a neutrino detector – the Baikal Deep Underwater Neutrino Telescope – is already installed 1 km underground.
“I think it’s possible to find an area of high-energy physics where the research with the help of this collider could be beneficial,” adds Romaniouk.
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