By New Cold War.org, from a news report published on Timer.ua (Odessa, Ukraine)
‘Politics is temporal, science is eternal.’
The Ukrainian National Academy of Science is refusing to break scientific cooperation with Russian scientists despite intense pressure from the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science to so.
An open letter by the scientists [original here], begins, “The statement of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine on cooperation of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine with the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute (MPhTI), published on the official website of the Ministry on July 24 this year, is provocative and destructive, containing distorted and sometimes even false information.”
“Importantly, the technical training of specialists is needed not only for the needs of the sciences of Ukraine but also for the overall economy of the country. Many years of fruitful cooperation with MPhTI have made it possible to adopt new and effective approaches to the education and training of engineering and scientific specialists in the nuclear industry.”
The letter continues, “Regarding the categorical demands of the current Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, Serhiy Kvit, to break any contact with Russian science, it should be noted that at all times, the mission of scientists is the search for understanding among peoples, despite political conflicts.”
“Such conflicts are temporal, whereas science is eternal”, the statement says.
It continues, “Irresponsible and offensive statements of the Ministry of Ukraine about alleged ‘antipatriotism’ and ‘immorality’ of the scientists of the Academy of Science, along with the calls to law enforcement agencies [to investigate the activity of scientists], should weigh heavily on the conscience of statement authors.”
Minister Serhiy Kvit adressed his demand to the Academy of Science of Ukraine because it has a license which allows it to educate students according to the program of MPhTI and this fact allows some students to continue their academic pursuits with it. Kvit wants the Ukrainian Academy to discard its license and cease cooperation with the Russian institute.
Education and Science Minister Serhiy Kvit was appointed to the post following the coup which overthrew Ukraine’s elected president in February 2014. He is an ideologue of the neo-Nazi organization ‘Tryzub’ (Stepan Bandera All-Ukrainian Organization Tryzub). It is a part of the Right Sector political agglomeration. Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh is also a member of Tryzub and a close associate of Kvit.
Kvit was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine) on October 25, 2014 as part of the ‘Poroshenko Bloc’ electoral machine of President Petro Poroshenko. Candidates of the far-right were also elected on the platforms of the electoral machines of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and former prime minister Julia Tymoshenko. Those results plus the impressive performances of the far-right Radical and Svoboda parties (13 per cent) give the lie to those who claimed that the vote for the direct candidates of Right Sector in the 2014 Rada election (some 1.5%) proved a weak institutional support and influence of the far-right.
