Anton Vlashenko often hears attacks outside his office in Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, not far from the front line. Sometimes he sees smoke coming from Russian tanks with missiles.
But the 40-year-old zoologist continues his work, cutting and marking the tissue of bats as he studies the ecology of flying mammal disease. When news of the war came out for him, he said it helped to do familiar things with his hands.
It is also considered disobedience.
“Our stay in Ukraine, our continuation of our work: it’s a kind of resistance to Russian aggression,” Vlashenko told Zoom, a snowstorm playing in the background. “The people of Ukraine are ready to fight together, not just with weapons. We do not want to lose our country ”.
His decision was not strange. Like other Ukrainians whose work was not necessary for the war, scientists and academics wanted to continue their important work where they could.
The usual restraint is that they want to stay in touch with their scientific community, providing a bit of normalcy in the face of chaos and violence and “shedding light on Ukraine’s science and humanity,” said Evhenya Polonchuk, who teaches economics. . in Kiev. University.
As Vice-President of the Council of Young Scientists of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Polonchuk organized an online Survey Academics to assess their condition and needs after the invasion on February 24. Approximately 4,000-6,000 scientists left Ukraine in early April – mostly women with families – but about 100,000 remained.
Most went abroad to Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe and took temporary positions in European institutions. Some scientists have received grants from the Polish Academy of Sciences, the United States National Academy of Sciences, etc. Organizations. Polonchuk, who is now in Krakow with his children and wife, was a visiting professor at the university in May and June, but he said he hopes to return to Kiev when the fighting stops.
“We don’t want the war to cause a brain drain from Ukraine,” he said.
While Ukrainian scientists are calling on international scientific bodies for help – including remote job opportunities and journals, datasets, archives and other material – there is also a desire to prevent the talent war and momentum from the country’s academic and professional rankings. , Which is necessary for recovery after the cessation of fighting.
“Most of our scientists don’t want to go abroad forever; “They want to stay in Ukraine,” Polonchuk said.
Shortly after the war began, Ivan Slusarev, a 34-year-old astronomer, helped the director of the Kharkiv National University Observatory move computers, monitors and other materials to a basement where there were equipment. dwellings and historical artifacts, when occupied by Nazi forces. the city. World War II.
The main observatory telescope is located in a field in the territory occupied by Russia, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Kharkov on the Donetsk road. Slyusareev said he did not know his condition but thought Ukrainian forces had blown up a nearby bridge to prevent Russia’s advance.
He relies on scientists outside Ukraine to continue his work. Astronomers from the Czech Republic sent him observation data from their telescope to continue examining the properties of metal asteroids. It can also see data from a small robotic telescope located in the Spanish Canary Islands. He mainly works from his home office outside Kharkov.
Slyusarev, who says he became an astronomer because of his “romantic” idea about the stars, found refuge in the scientists ’discoveries. Astronomy “just makes good news” and is welcome in everyday life, he said.
“It was very important during the war,” he added.
After the war began, theoretical physicist and astronomer Oleksiy Golubov left Kharkov to join his parents in the village of Batkov in western Ukraine.
Although the buildings of the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology were “bombed, bombed and nearly destroyed,” Golubov said, the school continues to offer distance learning. Continue to connect with students online – in Kharkov, Western Ukraine, Poland and Germany.
The 36-year-old scientist is also a coordinator and trainer for Ukrainian students preparing to participate in an international physics contest, a competition to solve unresolved physics problems, which held in Colombia this month. Students training online met for the first time this week in Lviv after a train trip was delayed due to the war.
“We still want to participate and show that even difficulties like war will not stop us from doing good science and get a good education,” he said.
Golubov, who was denied military service because of paralyzed hand, showed Carta In March, wrote in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics in gratitude: “We are grateful to the Ukrainians who are fighting to stop the war to safely end. of this article “.
Some scholars are enrolled, such as Ivan Patrylak, dean of the history department of Taras Shevchenko National University in Kiev. Eighteen months ago he gave a series of speeches about the legacy of World War II and lectured on the Holocaust. He is currently at the Department of Territorial Defense in Kiev.
Igor Lyman, a historian from Berdyansk State Pedagogical University, had to flee when Russian forces occupied the port at the start of the war. Before leaving, he saw troops storm the dormitory to question students and ordered administrators to teach in Russian, not Ukrainian, and use a Moscow -approved curriculum. He said the directors “refused and resigned.”
He later lived in the camp for internally displaced people of the National University of Chernivtsi, living in a dormitory with academics from Kiev, Kharkov, Chernigov, Kherson and other cities.
“Each of these families has its own horrific story of war,” he wrote in an email. “And everyone, like me, dreams of our success and homecoming”.
He said Russian forces were “doing everything possible to propagate”.
Kharkiv zoologist Vlashenko wanted to protect 20 bats from the bombing, so he brought them home within about an hour’s walk. It also contributed to the preservation of his valuable research, which was not easy to change, even when buildings and laboratories were rebuilt after the war.
“Everyone who decided to stay in Kharkov agreed to play the dangerous and potentially deadly lottery,” he said, “because you never know where a new rocket or a new bullet will hit.”
When he tries to record data and protect his rare specimens, he sees it as part of his mission: “not just for us, but for science in general”.
The Associated Press Department of Health and Science receives support from the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.
Source: Huffpost
