t-invariant-online

Open letter of Russian scientists and science journalists against the war with Ukraine

https://tinyurl.com/t-invariant/2022/02/we-are-against-war-en/

We, the under­signed Russian sci­en­tists and sci­ence jour­nal­ists, declare our strong oppo­si­tion to the Russian hos­til­i­ties launched against the Ukrainian peo­ple. These hos­til­i­ties are incur­ring huge human loss­es and under­mines the foun­da­tions of the estab­lished sys­tem of inter­na­tion­al secu­ri­ty. The respon­si­bil­i­ty for unleash­ing a new war in Europe lies entire­ly with Russia.

There is no ratio­nal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this war. Obviously, Ukraine pos­es no threat to the secu­ri­ty of Russia. The attempts to use the sit­u­a­tion in Donbass as a pre­text for launch­ing a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion are total­ly con­trived. The war against Ukraine is unjust and frankly nonsense.

Ukraine has been and remains a coun­try close to us. Many of us have rel­a­tives, friends, and col­leagues liv­ing in Ukraine. Our fathers, grand­fa­thers, and great-grand­fa­thers fought togeth­er against Nazism, and unleash­ing a war for the sake of the geopo­lit­i­cal ambi­tions of the lead­er­ship of the Russian Federation, dri­ven by dubi­ous his­to­rio­soph­i­cal fan­tasies, is a cyn­i­cal betray­al of their memory.

We respect the Ukrainian state­hood, which rests on the ideals of a demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tion, We are sym­pa­thet­ic to the ori­en­ta­tion of Ukraine toward the European Union. We are con­vinced that all of the prob­lems in the rela­tion­ships between our coun­tries could have been resolved peacefully.

Having unleashed the war, Russia has doomed itself to inter­na­tion­al iso­la­tion. It has devolved into a pari­ah coun­try. This means that we, Russian sci­en­tists and jour­nal­ists, will no longer be able to do our job in a nor­mal way because con­duct­ing sci­en­tif­ic research is unthink­able with­out coop­er­a­tion and trust with col­leagues from oth­er coun­tries. The iso­la­tion of Russia from the world means cul­tur­al and tech­no­log­i­cal degra­da­tion of our coun­try with a com­plete lack of pos­i­tive prospects. The war with Ukraine is a step to nowhere.

It is bit­ter to real­ize that our coun­try, which has made a deci­sive con­tri­bu­tion to the vic­to­ry over Nazism, has now insti­gat­ed a new war on the European con­ti­nent. We demand an imme­di­ate halt to all mil­i­tary oper­a­tions direct­ed against Ukraine. We demand respect for the sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty of the Ukrainian state. We demand peace for our countries.

Let’s make sci­ence, not war!

  24.02.2022