No fewer than one hundred and sixty-eight Nobel Laureates, including Nigeria’s Prof. Wole Soyinka on Friday called for immediate halt of invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
This was contained in an open letter by the Nobel Laureates, who voiced their support for the Ukrainian people and the free and independent state of Ukraine as it faced Russian aggression.
They asserted that there is always a peaceful way to resolve disputes, saying that the Russian invasion blatantly violated the United Nations Charter.
The Nobel Laureates explained that the Russian invasion would stain the international reputation of the Russian state for decades to come and that it would pose barriers to its economy and inflict hardships on its population, noting that the sanctions imposed would restrict the ease of movement of its talented and hardworking people in the world.
The letter reads in part: “In a move that recalls the infamous attack of Nazi Germany on Poland in 1939 (using similar tricks of feigned provocation) and on the Soviet Union in 1941, the government of the Russian Federation, led by President Putin, has launched an unprovoked military aggression — nothing else but a war — against its neighbor, Ukraine.
“We choose our words carefully here, for we do not believe the Russian people have a role in this aggression. We join in condemning these military actions and President Putin’s essential denial of the legitimacy of Ukraine’s existence,” they said.
“All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
“It ignores the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which obligated Russia and others to respect the sovereignty, independence, and existing borders of Ukraine.
“Russia’s security concerns can be addressed within the framework of the UN Charter, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, and the 1990 Paris Charter. To make war, as President Putin and his collaborators have done, is an unwarranted, bloody, and unproductive way to a future,” they added.
“Why raise this fence between Russia and the world now? Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers, Russian soldiers, and Ukrainian civilians, including children, have died already. It’s so sad, so unnecessary. We gather in this appeal to call upon the Russian government to stop its invasion of Ukraine and withdraw its military forces from Ukraine.
“We respect the calm and the strength of the Ukrainian people. We are with you. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all, Ukrainians and Russians, who have died and been injured already. May peace come to this piece of our beautiful world,” the letter stated.
168 Laureates Supporting Ukraine
Peter Agre 2003 Chemistry
James P. Allison 2018 Medicine
Harvey J. Alter 2020 Medicine
Hiroshi Amano 2014 Physics
Werner Arber 1978 Medicine
Frances H. Arnold 2018 Chemistry
Richard Axel 2004 Medicine
David Baltimore 1975 Medicine
Barry Clark Barish 2017 Physics
J. Georg Bednorz 1987 Physics
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo 1996 Peace
Paul Berg 1980 Chemistry
Bruce A. Beutler 2011 Medicine
Elizabeth H. Blackburn 2009 Medicine
Michael S. Brown 1985 Medicine
Linda B. Buck 2004 Medicine
William C. Campbell 2015 Medicine
Mario R. Capecchi 2007 Medicine
Thomas R. Cech 1989 Chemistry
Martin Chalfie 2008 Chemistry
Emmanuelle Charpentier 2020 Chemistry
Steven Chu 1997 Physics
Aaron Ciechanover 2004 Chemistry
J. M. Coetzee 2003 Literature
Elias James Corey 1990 Chemistry
Robert F. Curl Jr. 1996 Chemistry
Angus S. Deaton 2015 Economics
Johann Deisenhofer 1988 Chemistry
Jennifer A. Doudna 2020 Chemistry
Jacques Dubochet 2017 Chemistry
Shirin Ebadi 2003 Peace
Robert F. Engle III 2003 Economics
Gerhard Ertl 2007 Chemistry
Eugene F. Fama 2013 Economics
Andrew Z. Fire 2006 Medicine
Joachim Frank 2017 Chemistry
Jerome I. Friedman 1990 Physics
Leymah Roberta Gbowee 2011 Peace
Andre Geim 2010 Physics
Reinhard Genzel 2020 Physics
Andrea Ghez 2020 Physics
Sheldon Glashow 1979 Physics
Joseph L. Goldstein 1985 Medicine
Carol W. Greider 2009 Medicine
David J. Gross 2004 Physics
F. Duncan M. Haldane 2016 Physics
Jeffrey Connor Hall 2017 Medicine
John L. Hall 2005 Physics
Serge Haroche 2012 Physics
Oliver Hart 2016 Economics
Leland H. Hartwell 2001 Medicine
Klaus Hasselmann 2021 Physics
Harald zur Hausen 2008 Medicine
Richard Henderson 2017 Chemistry
Dudley R. Herschbach 1986 Chemistry
Avram Hershko 2004 Chemistry
Roald Hoffmann 1981 Chemistry
Jules A. Hoffmann 2011 Medicine
Bengt Holmstrom 2016 Economics
Tasuku Honjo 2018 Medicine
Gerardus ‘t Hooft 1999 Physics
H. Robert Horvitz 2002 Medicine
Sir Michael Houghton 2020 Medicine
Robert Huber 1988 Chemistry
Tim Hunt 2001 Medicine
Louis J. Ignarro 1998 Medicine
Kazuo Ishiguro 2017 Literature
Elfriede Jelinek 2004 Literature
David Julius 2021 Medicine
William G. Kaelin Jr. 2019 Medicine
Takaaki Kajita 2015 Physics
Eric R. Kandel 2000 Medicine
Tawakkol Karman 2011 Peace
Wolfgang Ketterle 2001 Physics
Klaus von Klitzing 1985 Physics
Brian K. Kobilka 2012 Chemistry
Roger D. Kornberg 2006 Chemistry
J. Michael Kosterlitz 2016 Physics
Finn E. Kydland 2004 Economics
The 14th Dalai Lama 1989 Peace
Yuan T. Lee 1986 Chemistry
Robert J. Lefkowitz 2012 Chemistry
Anthony J. Leggett 2003 Physics
Jean-Marie Lehn 1987 Chemistry
Michael Levitt 2013 Chemistry
Tomas Lindahl 2015 Chemistry
Benjamin List 2021 Chemistry
Roderick MacKinnon 2003 Chemistry
David W.C. MacMillan 2021 Chemistry
Barry J. Marshall 2005 Medicine
Eric S. Maskin 2007 Economics
John C. Mather 2006 Physics
Michel Mayor 2019 Physics
Arthur B. McDonald 2015 Physics
Daniel L. McFadden 2000 Economics
Craig C. Mello 2006 Medicine
Robert C. Merton 1997 Economics
Hartmut Michel 1988 Chemistry
Paul R. Milgrom 2020 Economics
Paul L. Modrich 2015 Chemistry
William E. Moerner 2014 Chemistry
Edvard Moser 2014 Medicine
May-Britt Moser 2014 Medicine
Gerard Mourou 2018 Physics
Herta Muller 2009 Literature
Ferid Murad 1998 Medicine
Roger B. Myerson 2007 Economics
Erwin Neher 1991 Medicine
Ryoji Noyori 2001 Chemistry
Sir Paul Nurse 2001 Medicine
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard 1995 Medicine
John O’Keefe 2014 Medicine
Yoshinori Ohsumi 2016 Medicine
Orhan Pamuk 2006 Literature
Ardem Patapoutian 2021 Medicine
James Peebles 2019 Physics
Edmund S. Phelps 2006 Economics
William D. Phillips 1997 Physics
John C. Polanyi 1986 Chemistry
H. David Politzer 2004 Physics
Stanley B. Prusiner 1997 Medicine
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan 2009 Chemistry
Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe 2019 Medicine
Maria Ressa 2021 Peace
Charles M. Rice 2020 Medicine
Adam G. Riess 2011 Physics
Sir Richard J. Roberts 1993 Medicine
Michael Rosbash 2017 Medicine
Alvin E. Roth 2012 Economics
James E. Rothman 2013 Medicine
Bert Sakmann 1991 Medicine
Oscar Arias Sanchez 1987 Peace
Juan Manuel Santos 2016 Peace
Kailash Satyarthi 2014 Peace
Jean-Pierre Sauvage 2016 Chemistry
Randy W. Schekman 2013 Medicine
Brian P. Schmidt 2011 Physics
Gregg L. Semenza 2019 Medicine
Phillip A. Sharp 1993 Medicine
K. Barry Sharpless 2001 Chemistry
Dan Shechtman 2011 Chemistry
Robert J. Shiller 2013 Economics
Hideki Shirakawa 2000 Chemistry
Hamilton O. Smith 1978 Medicine
Wole Soyinka 1986 Literature
Sir James Fraser Stoddart 2016 Chemistry
Horst L. Stormer 1998 Physics
Donna Strickland 2018 Physics
Jack W. Szostak 2009 Medicine
Joseph H. Taylor Jr. 1993 Physics
Kip Stephen Thorne 2017 Physics
Susumu Tonegawa 1987 Medicine
Daniel C. Tsui 1998 Physics
Mario Vargas Llosa 2010 Literature
Harold E. Varmus 1989 Medicine
Sir John E. Walker 1997 Chemistry
Arieh Warshel 2013 Chemistry
Rainer Weiss 2017 Physics
M. Stanley Whittingham 2019 Chemistry
Eric F. Wieschaus 1995 Medicine
Torsten N. Wiesel 1981 Medicine
Frank Wilczek 2004 Physics
Jody Williams 1997 Peace
David J. Wineland 2012 Physics
Sir Gregory P. Winter 2018 Chemistry
Kurt Wuthrich 2002 Chemistry
Shinya Yamanaka 2012 Medicine
Michael W. Young 2017 Medicine
