War-Affected Soils and the Imitation of Knowledge: A Critical Analysis of O. A. Gordienko’s “Impact of War on Soils” in Eurasian Soil Science

Abstract

This protocol documents a critical case analysis of Gordienko’s 2025 review Impact of War on Soils. The principal conclusion is that a low-quality compilation can acquire the institutional status of knowledge by reproducing the external form of a scientific publication while failing to perform the verification, differentiation, comparison and synthesis required of its declared genre. The initial question is how the publication system recognizes and disseminates such an imitation as a contribution to knowledge. A figure of 121,406 km² and 0.024 percent of Earth is examined against a source about the United States Department of Defense’s real-estate portfolio. Arithmetic reconstruction shows that converting 30 million acres produces the published area, but does not validate its reinterpretation as global war-affected soil. The complete dossier examines soil definitions, named soil categories, Ukraine’s representation, bibliographic selection, contemporary Russian territory, synthesis, genre, scholarly certification, translation, and AI disclosure. The protocol records competing explanations and distinguishes public evidence from interpretations and earlier audit findings requiring reproducible confirmation. It treats narrative reviews as a legitimate genre and does not equate the absence of a systematic-review checklist with invalidity. The full pattern supports the analytical classification of this text as imitation of review knowledge and identifies successful publication of that imitation as the main institutional problem. The citation error is evidence within the case, not its whole conclusion. This classification does not imply proof of deliberate deception or establish private reviewer conduct or prevalence across publishing.