An appeal to support Ukraine – and the next-generation of Europeans
The Nobel Laureates in Physics Serge Haroche (2012) and Ferenc Krausz (2023) – together with a small delegation of volunteers – visited Ukraine in the first week of March 2025 to give academic lectures and to express their solidarity with the academic community and the people of Ukraine. The Nobel Appeal they brought with them, signed by 131 Nobel Laureates from around the world, was a clear sign that they were doing so on behalf of many colleagues from a wide range of disciplines. Here is their report, accompanied by pictures that are both moving and affecting.
There is a lot of media coverage of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. And even if the reporting is often shocking and gets under your skin, it still seems strangely distanced when you are in your own familiar surroundings, far away from the danger and the immediate reality of what is happening. The mention of figures and statistics, behind which individual human fates are hidden, makes the reality in Ukraine appear somehow abstract. All the more haunting and disturbing are the atmosphere and the impressions that can be gathered on location and in conversation with those affected.
We have visited Kyiv and Kharkiv on March 4th and 5th. The purpose of the trip was to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian academic community and to present the Center for Civil Liberties (in representation of the people of Ukraine) with an appeal signed by 131 Nobel Laureates. This visit was a moving and unforgettable experience.
Although our hosts undertook all efforts to ensure our safety, we were able to experience the psychological pressure of the raid alarms ringing on the mobile phones of the Ukrainian citizen we met. The muffled sound of explosions of intercepted missiles and drones in the distance made us acutely aware that we were in a country at war. The night before we left Kyiv to go back to Budapest by train, we learned that a missile had hit a hotel in Kryvyi Rih where volunteers of a humanitarian organization – citizens of Ukraine, the UK and the US – were staying. Five people were killed and more than a dozen seriously injured. This was another Russian attack on civilian infrastructure with no military significance, another war crime. We only experienced this insecurity for three days, but it gave us a glimpse of the permanent anguish the people of Ukraine – men, women and children – have been exposed to for more than three years. Not to mention the pressure on male and female soldiers, young and old, who are in direct and constant danger at the front.
With the support of volunteers from Sweden, Hungary and Ukraine, we visited teaching and research institutions in Kyiv and Kharkiv. It was heart-warming to talk to students and teachers, to feel the cordiality with which we were welcomed, to witness the resilience of a people who feel they have no choice but to fight for their freedom. It was heart-breaking to see the destruction in residential areas, at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, and on the university campus in Kharkiv. It was also deeply moving to visit Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv where 600 civilians were murdered in cold blood by Russian soldiers and buried in mass graves. The Ukrainians have kept the memory of these dreadful events by erecting moving memorials. A huge pile of burnt civilian car bodies, riddled with shrapnel and bullet holes, bears witness to the brutality of the Russian aggressors. At the same time, it was comforting to see that, three years on, Ukrainians have rebuilt their homes and gone back to work, protecting their families and raising their children at home and at school as best as they can in the most difficult circumstances.
Spending even a short time in Ukraine and having the opportunity to discuss with its citizens made us realize that we were on the very border of Europe. Freedom of speech and respect for democratic principles on one side, rejection of all the values of the Enlightenment on the other. It also made us feel that the Ukrainian frontline is the bulwark of European freedom. If this bulwark is not secured, if Russia is not forced to stay within its borders by a fair and enforceable peace agreement with serious security guarantees, there will be no freedom for Ukraine, and no long-lasting peace in Europe.
Whatever happens in a situation which has been rapidly evolving since we left Kyiv, we should keep resolutely supporting Ukraine in its fight for survival as a free and democratic country. To express its support, Europe has an asset in the form of the 200 billion Euros of frozen funds deposited by the Russian Federation in European banks. What to do with these assets (along with those kept outside Europe) is the subject of the Appeal by Nobel laureates that we presented to our Ukrainian hosts. It calls for the release of these funds to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine and to compensate war victims, so that the country could be rapidly rebuilt after a peace agreement is reached.
Failure to seize these funds would doubly hit Europe. Returning them would allow Russia to use the money to rebuild its military capacity, and would thus render the threat to Europe’s security 200 billion Euro more severe. At the same time, the contribution of Europe to the reconstruction of their European neighbour would have to be provided without these assets, i.e. entirely by European tax-payers. This would – in effect – place an additional financial burden of € 400 billion on the shoulders of the next generation of Europeans. Making the aggressor country pay for its illegal invasion and its war crimes is only justice. It is also in the interest of today’s European children. We do hope that our governments will hear this appeal.
Serge Haroche & Ferenc Krausz
Pictures: ©️ Kyiv School of Economics