RASA statement in support of Professor Konstantin Sonin

The Board of Directors of RASA (Russian American Science Association) express­es full and uncon­di­tion­al sup­port to a val­ued mem­ber of our asso­ci­a­tion Professor Konstantin Sonin of the University of Chicago, in con­nec­tion with a recent reports that a crim­i­nal case has been opened against him in Russia on sus­pi­cion of pub­licly dis­sem­i­nat­ing of alleged­ly «false infor­ma­tion about the use of the Russian Armed Forces».

Professor Sonin is an inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized aca­d­e­m­ic, a promi­nent spe­cial­ist in the field of eco­nom­ic and social sci­ences, cit­i­zen, pub­li­cist, and pub­lic fig­ure. He firm­ly and con­sis­tent­ly oppos­es Russian aggres­sion in Ukraine and defends human rights and the rights of sci­en­tists. Professor Sonin belongs to best Russian and world intel­li­gentsia. Like his dis­tin­guished pre­de­ces­sors of a cen­tu­ry ago, he was forced to leave Russia. We con­sid­er the open­ing of a crim­i­nal case against Professor Sonin by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and those who are hid­ing behind it, to be ille­gal accord­ing to the inter­na­tion­al and Russian law.There is a bit­ter irony in the fact that these actions echo the shame­ful actions of the Soviet gov­ern­ment in the 1930s against our great com­pa­tri­ots – sci­en­tists George Gamow, Vladimir Ipatieff, Aleksei Chichibabin and many oth­ers. Such sense­less and inap­pro­pri­ate actions are absurd and reflect the low moral lev­el, lim­it­ed under­stand­ing, and short-sight­ed­ness of those who stand behind them. They cause the oppo­site effect, which was obvi­ous in the last cen­tu­ry, and more so in the cur­rent era of glob­al dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion. In this case, the per­se­cu­tion of Professor Sonin in Russia attracts more atten­tion, arous­es uni­ver­sal sym­pa­thy for his sup­port by the civ­i­lized world and ampli­fies the impact of his pub­lic state­ments. In ref­er­ence here are the grotesque words of our oth­er bril­liant com­pa­tri­ot, a writer Nikolai Gogol – “the non-com­mis­sioned officer’s wid­ow flogged her­self.” We have no doubt that the truth will be obvi­ous to Russian cit­i­zens who will even­tu­al­ly rec­og­nize that the cur­rent gov­ern­ment is absolute­ly unwor­thy and intolerable.

Board of Directors of the Russian American Science Association (RASA)

Official web­site of RASA

If you would like to sup­port this state­ment and sign it, you can do so here.

Alexander Kabanov  31.03.2023